The Pathname option is for people who organize their disks into subdirectories. Organizing a disk into subdirectories is like putting documents into file folders instead of throwing them randomly into a drawer. (See Figure 4-1.)
For example, you might have a drawer in your office where you file personnel information on your employees. In that drawer you have folders called Finance, Sales, Manufacturing , and so on. Inside each folder are documents with personnel information on each employee in that department. You can use this same system to organize information on a disk. You would name the disk PERSONNEL; set up subdirectories on the disk called FINANCE, SALES , and MANUFACTURING; and save documents with personnel information on each employee in the appropriate subdirectory.
Organizing documents into subdirectories not only makes it easier for you to find documents on a disk, but also makes it faster for the computer to locate and load documents you want to revise.
When you look at the directory of a disk, you don't see the name of every document in every subdirectory. You see only the subdirectory names and the names of documents you saved directly onto the disk rather than into subdirectories. ((Looking at a disk directory and seeing only subdirectory names is like opening the drawer of a file cabinet and seeing the names on the folders rather then seeing every document in every folder.) If you want to see the names of the documents in a subdirectory, type the disk name, a slash, then the subdirectory name when you ask the application for a directory listing.
Figure 4-1
Two ways to organize documents
