No, you can use the full path.

1. String fullPath = "C:/Make Sure/To/Use/Forward/Slashes/SomeFile.txt";
2. String[] strings = loadStrings(fullPath);
3. println(strings);
4. exit();

I don't know about loadString, but you can use the Java.io package to read files from any location.  Here is the link to FileReader which may be the esaiest way to achieve this.

**Edit**
Thanks phi.lho, point taken! I just took the first link google gave me for filereader, but you're absoloutly right...  Here is the Java 6 link: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/io/FileReader.html

Wow, people still link to Java 1.4 documentations!...

And amnon.owed is right, this is under-documented, but loadXxx and saveXxx() in Processing can happily take absolute paths. No need to use java.io, except when fine control is really needed.

Thanks for the reply. The documentation should be updated then because is states that it needs the file in the data folder. Nothing is mentioned about a full path. And the signed applet link is dead.