cleaning up desktop

[pixie6]

hello...

i'm an ibook g4 novice (OS X).

the problem is with word for mac.

how do i prevent document icons appearing on my desktop every time i open a word for mac file? they act like shortcuts to the documents itself, and when i drag them to the trash, the entire word document it pertains to gets deleted (or rather remains in the trash).

i want to open word documents without them appearing on my desktop basically.

and how do i safely remove the dozens that are already there without making them go to the trash please?

thanks all.

pixie6

 

[jwb]

Do the document icons appear at the same time on both the desktop and in the folder that contained the documents, that is, the files are being duplicated, or do they move to the desktop from the folder in which they were originally located?

The problem could possibly be a setting in Preferences. Go to Preferences>File Location and see if any entry there shows a location as your desktop. If so, click the Modify... button and change the location.

Are you sure that when you save the files in the first place you are saving them to a folder and not to the desktop?

If the original files have been moved to your desktop from the original location drag the document icons back to the folders in which they should be located. If somehow the files have been duplicated then the Finder will ask if you want to replace the existing file. Retain whichever file is newer.

If none of this works please supply more detailed, step-by-step information of what you are doing when the document icons appear on the desktop. Also, include information about your Mac, system version, version of Word.

 

[pixie6]

thanks jwb - i think i've sorted it thanks to you.

i now always make sure my save settings say 'documents' and not 'desktop'. i have also cleaned up my desktop using the dragging process you mentioned.

one outstanding issue : when i download an email attachment, open it, read it and then close it, an icon for it has put itself on my desktop. which setting can i alter to stop this do you think?

pixie6