Opening files from symlinks

[Andy]

Hi

I'm pretty new to Gnome but have used KDE for quite a while. I'm used to 
being able to put symlinks to commonly used files on (say) my desktop 
and use them to open the files.

If I try this on Ubuntu (or on Mandrake running Gnome for that matter) 
the file opens OK but I can't save directly because it tries to save to 
the location of the symlink not the original file. The actual error you 
get is "Cannot create backup file" if you just hit "save" but if you use 
"Save as" you can see that the path is that of the symlink not that of 
the original file.

Anyone know is there a way around this?

Thanks

Andy