Introduction
It's important to know how to save the documents you are working with.
Frequently saving your documents prevents you from losing your work, and
using Save As allows you to edit a document while leaving the original copy
unchanged.
There are several ways to share and receive documents, which will affect
how you need to save the file. Are you downloading the document? Saving it
for the first time? Saving it as another name? Sharing it with someone who
doesn't have Word 2010? All of these factors will affect how you save your
Word documents. In this lesson, you'll learn how to use the Save and Save
As commands, how to save as a Word 97-2003 compatible document, and
how to save as a PDF.
How to save documents
When you create a new document in Word, you'll need to know how
to save it in order to access and edit it later. Word allows you to save your
documents in several ways.
Optional: You can download this example for extra practice.
To use the Save As command:
Save As allows you to choose a name and location for your document. It's
useful if you've first created a document or if you want to save a different
version of a document while keeping the original.
1. Click the File tab.
2. Select Save As.
3. The Save As dialog box will appear. Select the
location where you want to save the document.
4. Enter a name for the document, then click Save.
If you're using Windows 7, you'll usually want to save files to
your Documents library, while in other versions of Windows you'll save them
to the My Documents folder. For more information, check out our lessons
on Windows 7 and Windows XP.
To use the Save command:
1. Click the Save command on the Quick Access
toolbar.
2. The document will be saved in its current
location with the same file name.
If you are saving for the first time and select Save, the Save As dialog box will
appear.
AutoRecover
Word automatically saves your documents to a temporary folder while you're
working on them. If you forget to save your changes or if Word crashes, you
can recover the autosaved file.
1. Open a document that was previously closed
without saving.
2. In Backstage view, click Info.
3. If there are autosaved versions of your file, they
will appear under Versions. Click on the file to
open it.
4. To save changes, click Restore, then click OK.
By default, Word autosaves every 10 minutes. If you are editing a document
for less than 10 minutes, Word may not create an autosaved version.
Other file formats
You can share your documents with anyone using Word 2010 or 2007 because
they use the same file format. However, earlier versions of Word use a
different file format, so if you want to share your document with someone
using an earlier version of Word you'll need to save it as a Word 97-2003
document.
To save as a Word 97-2003 document:
1. Click the File tab.
2. Select Save As.
3. In the Save as type drop-down menu,
select Word 97-2003 Document.
4. Select the location where you want to save the
document.
5. Enter a name for the document, then click Save.
To save as a PDF:
1. Click the File tab.
2. Select Save As.
3. In the Save as type drop-down menu,
select PDF.
4. Select the location where you want to save the
document.
5. Enter a name for the document.
6. Click the Save button.
Challenge!
1. Open an existing Word document. If you
want, you can use this example.
2. Using Save As, save the document with the file
name trial.
3. Save the same document as a PDF file.
4. Close the document.
5. Open another existing Word document.
6. Save the document so it is compatible with
Word 2003.
7. Close the document.
