After
you open the Create page, click
the Document Library link to create a new document library. The
following page asks you for the required settings for the document
library (see Figure 1).
This page might show different options for the document library,
depending on the server configuration. For example, some SharePoint
servers can allow a document library to have an associated email address
and receive emails sent to that library directly into the document
library itself. If that option is enabled in the server, the settings
page will ask you for additional information, such as the email address
that should be associated with the document library. If the option is
not enabled, the setting will not be displayed on the page, as can be
seen in Figure 1.
The first option is the
name for the document library. This name determines not just the title
that the users will see, but also the link that will be created for the
document library. For example, if you call the document library
Presentations, the link to the document library is the link to the site
and then /Presentations. This point is important because although you
can change the title of the document library later, you cannot change
its link. You can also set the description for the library. This
description is usually displayed to users in the All Site Content page
next to the library’s name, and in most cases it also appears in all the
views for the library, just above the view. You can always change the
description later in the library’s settings.
Tip
If you want to avoid
complicated links, choose a short name for the document library when you
are creating it, and after that change the title for the document
library. For example, if you want to create a document library for human
resources policies, name it HRP when creating it, and then change the title to Human Resources Policies
after it has been created. That way, the link is short and easy to type
or view (when sending it in email, for example), and the title explains
to all users what should be in that document library.
This approach can
also help you avoid unreadable links. For example, if your document
library’s name has spaces in it, the link to the document library will
have the special character combination %20 instead of the spaces, which
will make the link look long and complex. Using this tip you can create
the document library with a short name without spaces, and then rename
the title to have the spaces.
Note
Although you can have
two document libraries with the same title, you cannot have two
document libraries with the same link. This means that the link to the
document library must be unique, and in this initial screen, you choose
the unique name. If that name is already in use, SharePoint prevents you
from creating the document library and asks for another name. Remember
that you can always change the title afterward.
The next option you can set
is whether a link to the document library should be added to the quick
launch navigation bar (the left navigation bar for the site). This
option can be changed later also.
The next choice to make is
whether SharePoint should manage versions for documents in the document
library. If you choose YES then all changes in documents will create new
versions of the documents. Although you can change this option later,
if you choose NO, all changes made in documents until you change the
setting will not be stored in separate versions. However, if your site
has a size quota, and you are worried about consuming a lot of space,
leaving this setting turned off can save quite a bit of space.
The last option, Document
Template, enables you to pick the application or type of file that will
be used when the user clicks the New button in the document library. For
example, you can choose Microsoft Word to have SharePoint open an empty
Microsoft Word document when the user clicks the New button, or you can
choose any of the other
Microsoft Office applications. For web pages, you can choose either
Basic Page (an empty page that you can then type text on) or Web Part
Page, which will create a page that allows the user to add web parts.
By default, the new
document library has only the Document content type associated with it,
so the New button does not show any options for different kinds of file
types, but here you can set a specific file type that the users can use
with the New button.
When you are
finished selecting the options, click Create to create the document
library. A new, empty library is created with the settings you chose.
