Scores of people have asked me how to alphabetize the “Favorites” that they’ve accumulated in their Microsoft Internet Explorer browser.

What’s a “favorite” you might ask? Favorites are Web (or Windows) pages you have saved electronically in your browser as though you had “bookmarked” a real book with a piece of paper. When you go to favorites, you can find your bookmarked Web sites within two clicks. Ideally, that is!

Your list of favorites is found by clicking on the word “Favorites” at the top of your MSIE browser. Check it out right now.

Microsoft already supplies you with some default bookmarks, but you can add more yourself. Most people add scores of Web pages to their list of favorites and then one day when they really need to find one, they face a list of hundreds of page names- none in alphebetical order. Obviously, finding a single site fast is impossible.

But not if you have your favorites in alphabetical order.

For some reason, Microsoft keeps how to do this a big secret. Go to “Help” on the MSIE browser and look for anything related to alphabetizing of favorites. You won’t find it.

Yet, once you know, it is so simple. Here’s how:

• Open your favorites list by clicking on the spelled-out word "Favorites" atop the MSIE browser. (You cannot do this alphabetizing by merely clicking on the Icon/Symbol for favorites.
• You need to have the spelled-out word "Favorites" visible to click on atop your browser. So if you don't have it visible, you may have to first go to View>Toolsbars>Customize and select "Show Text Labels" in order for the spelled- out word, "Favorites," to be made visible atop your MSIE browser. Once it is, THEN you can click on it to begin the following steps:)

  Right-click on any site in the list. A menu opens. Left-click on "Sort by Name."

Now what about the pages listed in subfolders, if you have any? How do you alphabetize them? Same way. Click on favorites. Left-click on any folder in which you have subfolders. Its list of sites is displayed. Right click on any of the sites and from the menu select “Sort by Name.” They are now alphabetized. Keep doing this as you drill down through all your subfolders.

What? You have never made a subfolder in your favorites? Here’s how Microsoft says to do that:

As your list of favorite pages grows, you can keep it organized by creating folders. You might want to organize your pages by topic. For example, you could create a folder named Art for storing information about art exhibits and reviews.

1. On the Favorites menu, click Organize Favorites.
2. Click Create Folder, type a name for the folder, and then press ENTER.
3. Drag the shortcuts (or folders) in the list to the appropriate folders.

If the number of shortcuts or folders makes dragging impractical, you can use the Move to Folder button instead.

(From: Help, Microsoft 6.0)

After today, your “favorites” will become a useful timesaving tool for you instead of a source of frustration every time you try to find a certain page that was once important enough to bookmark.