Essential SharePoint 2007, 2nd Edition

Changing Library Settings

Most of the built-in templates include a new, empty Shared Documents library when they are created. You can create new documents, upload existing ones, create folders, check out files, and sort or filter the contents of the library using the toolbar and Edit menu, as shown in Figure 5-3.

Figure 5-3. Using the library toolbar and Edit menus

The Shared Documents library is very generic, and you often need to make these common adjustments to it:

• Turn on versioning and/or document approval.

• Modify the template used when creating new documents.

The following sections show you how to work with those settings.

Turning On Versioning and Approval

The standard Shared Documents library doesn't include approval status or version history by default. To enable these features:

1. Click Settings → Document Library Settings, and then click "Versioning settings" under the General Settings heading on the left side of the page. SharePoint displays the Document Library Versioning Settings page.

2. Change the settings as shown in Figure 5-4 and click OK.

Figure 5-4. Enabling approval and versioning for a library

Versioning is not turned on by default when you create a new document library because it requires additional storage space and because the versioned libraries are slightly harder to use: ...