Jump Lists are a feature in Microsoft Windows 7 that are designed to provide you with quick access to the documents and tasks associated with your applications. Jump Lists appear on the Start menu as well as on the Taskbar when you right-click on an icon.
Jump Lists can be found on the icons of applications that have been specifically pinned to the Taskbar or the Start menu, on the application icons that appear on the Taskbar when an application is running, or on the Start menu in the recently opened programs section.
By default, the Jump List can contain the application’s shortcut, the ability to toggle pinning, the ability to close one or all windows, access to specific tasks associated with the application, and once you begin using the application, a list of recent documents or destinations depending on the application.
Microsoft Word
Let’s begin with the Microsoft Word Jump List. Let’s assume Word is pinned to the Taskbar; to get to your Jump Lists for Word you Right-Click the Word icon in the Taskbar, and you will see, at a minimum, the information in the Red box shown in Figure A. If you’ve been using Word, then you will see the most ‘Recent’ files you have worked on in the Blue box shown in Figure A.
To Pin a file to the Pinned section you Right-Click the Word icon in the Taskbar as shown in Figure B, Step 1; then click the ‘Push Pin’ icon located to the right of the file name when you mouse over the file as shown in Figure B, Step 2. This will move the file from ‘Recent’ to ‘Pinned’.
Now when you want to work on that file, you simply Right-Click the Word icon and select the file; no more opening Word, click icon for ‘Open’ or ‘File’ tab then ‘Open’, then navigating to where you have saved your file.
You’ll be finished working on the file before you even get the file open in the ‘traditional’ method.
Jump Lists with Other Applications
Jump Lists are available with any application that is either pinned to the taskbar or currently running. Let’s look at Outlook, Figure C. When you Right-Click the Outlook icon in the taskbar you get options for Tasks that you use all the time, i.e. new email, new appointment, new meeting, new contact, or new task. So when working on a Word document or visiting web pages, you can quickly do one of the tasks without having to minimize your currently working windows to bring up the Outlook window.
You can also pin sites to your favorite browser icon. In Figure D you can see the Jump Lists for my Chrome browser. I can quickly jump to the Listserv website without having to open my browser then navigate to the Listserv website; hence, saving time.
Another extremely useful Jump List is associated with Windows Explorer, the Folder icon located by default in your Taskbar. You can pin numerous folders to the Jump List so you can quickly access those folders, even folders on a server. This is such a time saver since you can quickly jump to the folder you need versus a long navigation. See Figure E
Jump Lists from the Start Menu will appear different, but they function in the same way. See Figure F
As you can see from the examples, I use my Jump Lists all the time; I rarely open a file in the traditional method any longer, and it saves me lots of time, and energy wondering where I stored that file.
I hope you incorporate using Jump Lists in your daily routine as I think you will see the benefits very quickly.
Happy Jumping!
