SharePoint 2010 : Edit the Properties of a File or List Item

Properties information is useful when you are looking for a file or a list item. You might be able to search for it based on the value that is set in its properties.

Use the Edit Properties Dialog

To edit the properties of a file, locate the file in the folder where it was saved and highlight that file by checking the check box that appears to the left of the file or item when you hover on the row for that file or list item. When you select the file this way, the ribbon switches to the Documents ribbon. If you have permissions to edit that file’s properties, the Edit Properties button is available in the ribbon (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. The Edit Properties button in the Documents ribbon.

Alternatively, you can hover the mouse over the link to the file and then open the drop-down menu of actions for that file. If you have permissions to edit that file’s properties, you see the Edit Properties option in this menu (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. The Edit Properties menu option appears when you have permissions to edit a document or a list item’s properties.

With list items, the procedure is slightly easier than with files. Although you can go through the same process as for files (described in the preceding paragraph), you can also simply click the title of the list item to open the dialog that shows the item’s properties and then choose Edit Item from the available ribbon. Clicking this button switches the dialog to one where you can modify the current properties of the file or list item.

When you’re editing the properties of a file or a list item, properties that are mandatory are marked with a red asterisk (*), and you must fill in those properties before you can save your changes (see Figure 3). If you don’t fill in those properties, SharePoint does not let you click OK and tells you which properties are not filled in.

Figure 3. When you do not fill in a required property, SharePoint prompts you to do so when you try to save.

File and list item properties can be of different types, and each type has a different way of capturing data (see Figure 4). For example, a text property displays a text box for you to enter data. A date property can appear as a text box (for the date) with a button next to it that looks like a calendar that enables you to choose a date, and it might even have two drop-downs for selecting a time. A yes/no field appears as a check box.

Figure 4. For different property types, you enter or select data in different ways. In this task form, you can see six different types.

SharePoint also validates the properties based on the types. This means, for example, that you cannot write text in a date field or in a numeric property. If you do so, SharePoint shows you a red error message under that field and prevents you from saving the properties until you fix the problem.

In addition, the document library or list manager may choose to impose additional conditions on some of the properties. For example, it might state that the title of a file should be fewer than 43 characters long. SharePoint also alerts you if you try to save the properties when one of those conditions is not met, and it tells you what field is not set correctly and what limitations are configured for that field.

An important action when creating a new file in some document libraries is choosing the content type for the file. Different content types require different properties, so it is recommended that before you enter the other properties, you select the content type first. This should not be a problem because the Content Type property is always the first one to appear in the list of properties if the document library was configured to use more than one content type, as you can see in Figure 5.

Figure 5. The content type is the first thing you need to choose when uploading a file.

Changing the content type causes the properties page to refresh and load the properties that are required for the selected content type. However, if the new content type has some of the same properties as the old one, the values in those properties are not lost. You can therefore switch between content types without worrying about losing the information.

After you have filled in all the properties you want, click Save at the bottom or the top of the page to save the changes.

If the document library is set up to require you to check in and check out files, you must check in the file after changing its properties.

To edit the properties of multiple list items or files, you can also use the datasheet view. For more information on this, see the next section.

Use the Inline Editing Interface

Some views support an option called inline editing. When this option is turned on, you can edit the properties for a file or a list item without opening the properties page. When this option is available, a new button appears next to the check box of each row (see Figure 6). This icon, when clicked, switches the row to editing mode, where you can change which columns are visible in the view. In the editing mode you can also cancel by clicking the Cancel button or save the changes by using the Save button, as shown in Figure 7.

Figure 6. Hovering over a row when inline editing is enabled.

Figure 7. Editing the properties of a list item in inline editing mode.