At least Windows 8 makes it easy to create a Start Screen tile for a program, or for a folder. But if you have a FILE that you open often (like a Word file, a Notepad file, or a PDF) and you want a tile to open it, there's no ready-made way to create one. But you can do it this way. Open your Start Menu folder, which is C:\Users\(Your Username)\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs (It's a hidden folder, so just paste the above path into the File Explorer address bar.) Then open the folder containing your file. Right-click the file's icon and select "Copy." Then right-click in the Start Menu folder and select NOT "Paste," but "Paste Shortcut." This makes the shortcut look like an "App" to Windows 8, so if you then go to the Metro Search Screen and search for "Apps" it will come up there, and you can right-click it and "Pin to Start."
the alternative method I use is: reg file to pin anything to the start screen: Code: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\pintostartscreen] "MUIVerb"="@shell32.dll,-51201" "NeverDefault"="" "Description"="@shell32.dll,-51202" "MultiSelectModel"="Single" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\pintostartscreen\command] "DelegateExecute"="{470C0EBD-5D73-4d58-9CED-E91E22E23282}" copy/paste in notepad - save as pintostartscreen.reg