applicationsdialogfile
On every other operating system except MacOS, when you bring up an Open File dialog, you can type (for example) *.txt or even *recipe*.txt to narrow down the list shown on the screen.
On MacOS, there's just a predefined list of filename extensions that you can choose from, but I don't see anywhere to type a file match pattern myself. I want to filter by the whole filename, not just the extension. How do I enable this very basic feature that I take for granted on both Windows and Linux?
Once you find the file using Alfred, you can copy its path to the clipboard and paste that path into the Go to Folder tool of open/save dialogs.
Find your file in Alfred, press the right arrow key to view the list of operations for that file, the up arrow key to go to the last option (Copy path to clipboard), and then the enter key to activate that option.
Switch back to the open/save dialog, press cmd-shift-g to open the Go to Folder dialog, paste the path in, and hit enter. The file will be selected and you can hit Enter to open/save.
If you're interested in getting some more flexibility out of Open/Save dialogs, I highly recommend Default Folder X. It's immensely powerful and customizable and could eliminate the need for workarounds like this.
$35, 30 day trial
This cannot be done from the Open dialog on the Mac. It, however, can be done from the "Save" dialog.
Enter the "Save" dialog (in Word, it's usually shown as a sheet). If you don't see the file tree, click the down-arrow next to the filename box (it's circled in the below image).
In the expanded window, navigate to the folder where you have your client information. To make a new folder, click the "New Folder" button in the lower-left of the sheet (again, circled in the below image).
(Screenshot examples from Word 2011.)
Best Answer
You have Spotlight available from every file-picker dialog.
You can search by name or extension/file type, either in the currently open directory or the entire machine.
Sidebar hidden to save unnecessary extraneous detail
If you know the name rather than the filetype of the document you are looking for, then, same as in any Finder folder, you can start to type the name & the selection will jump to the first match for that string.
eg typing t,e,s will find the first match on test.txt, but you can't use this to find a file type .xml etc as it only searches from the beginning of the name.