I'm ready to start on this quarter's work.

My last quarter's work is all in a folder with subfolders (called \Sales, \Marketing, \Customers, etc.) These subfolders are in turn full of Excel spreadsheets and the like. I'd like to duplicate this file structure for the current quarter.

With my proposed "Paste Skeleton" function, I can simply select last quarter's folder, right-click and choose "Copy ", then, go where I'd like it for this quarter and choose "Paste Skeleton...".

The computer copies only the folder names, but none of the documents within them. Even better, if I choose "Include Spreadsheet Skeletons" option, then all the Excel spreadsheets, Word documents, etc. are duplicated too, yet cleared of all numerical data. The file names and worksheet structure (column widths, column headers, cell formats, etc.) *are* copied, so I can start fresh for the quarter with pre-formatted worksheets.

Thank you.
-- phundug, Apr 02 2005

Seems like a reasonable thing to desire. I wonder though if enough people would want this that it should be part of the OS or would be better served as an app function (of Excel, in your example, for example).

Not sure if 'skeleton' is the right term either. Something like "Duplicate File Tree" or "... File Structure" with an "Include blank files" option, perhaps.
-- waugsqueke, Apr 03 2005


Heh + Quarterback sneak, get it? 'Cause you go back to the start of the quarter. You get your whole quarterba...ah skip it.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Apr 03 2005


So, if there was an imminent power outage, and you backed up your files and shut down as fast as you could, would that be a Flee Flicker ?
-- normzone, Apr 03 2005


I'm not sure if this is possible, but what if it didn't come with you operating system, but rather in the form of an individual program that you could install on your computer in order to add such an option to your folder menus?
-- Psudomorph, May 03 2007


You could just make a template. Seems what you really are proposing is a way to create a template based on existing files.
-- ironfroggy, May 03 2007


This is quite easy to implement, a small shell script would suffice, though I seem to remember this being possible from the command line, though maybe not under windows.
-- Extreme Tomato, May 03 2007


I need this, and would pay for it.
-- nomocrow, May 03 2007


I'm now scared of what the 'Cut Skeleton' command might do.
-- pertinax, May 04 2007


[Ian] It would be easy to simply set up nested folders and name them, but I think the idea is to take advantage of the long process of building the files as work is done.
-- nomocrow, May 04 2007



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