Microsoft Sharepoint Products and Technologies Resource Kit eBook

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Chapter 19: Working with Documents in SharePoint Products and Technologies 517
When a document library is created, two views are available:
■ All Documents view. This is the default view and lists the documents in a
similar way as a spreadsheet. This view enables you to have some information
about the document without the need to open each document or rely on users
to make the file name meaningful. Some columns display user-definable
descriptive information, known as document properties or metadata, as illustrated
in Figure 19-2. These document properties are displayed in columns
next to the document name.
There can be multiple columns, and the information can be presented as Yes
or No check boxes, drop-down menus, date and time, currency, a link, free text,
or other choices. Document metadata can be promoted and demoted between
Office-compatible files and the SQL Server content database. (See Chapter 20,
“Working with Information Components in SharePoint Products and Technologies.”)
To view the metadata that has been read from the document, create columns
that match the property names used in the document. Whether you create
a column to display a document’s metadata or not, the metadata will still be read
and stored in the content database. The important point here is that when you create
a column in the document library with a matching name to the property in the
file, Windows SharePoint Services automatically demotes this property from the
column in the document library and moves it into the property of the file.
Tip If some columns do not appear in the view, property information can be
found by clicking View Properties from the drop-down list associated with the file.
Figure 19-2 Document library—using the default view, All Documents, you can view the
properties of a file