Tip #6 - Save versus Save As

100 Computer Tips in 100 Days

Tip #6 - Save versus Save As

In almost every class I have ever taught when we save a document I wait for the one person who will ask, "When do I use Save rather than Save As?” The answer is surprisingly simple.

When you are ready to save your document for the first time, many people believe that they need to use Save As in order to name it. The truth is that it doesn't matter which you choose, Save or Save As, for the first save because you will be presented with the same Save As dialog box in either case. You then give your document a name, make sure it's going into the correct folder, and then you click the Save button.

From then on as you work in your document you can click on Save (or use Ctrl + s, Command + s for Apple users) to update the file. Every time you click on Save, the additional changes you make to your document are stored and any previous versions are written over.

This is a picture of the dialog box that you get when you
click the "save" button. Note the name of the dialog
box is "Save As" because it's the first save.

The only time you really need to use Save As is if you have a document that you want to use to make a different version of the original document. For example, if you are the secretary for an organization and you created  a document for the September Minutes and now it is time for you to create an October Minutes document, you can open the September Minutes document, choose Save As from the File menu (or the Office button in Office 2007 or the File tab in Office 2010), and name the document October Minutes. The original September Minutes document closes and is replaced on your screen with one called October Minutes. Using Save As saved you time because you have the basic structure of the document from last month to which you simply make changes. You continue working on that document, saving your changes along the way.

You should view Save As as a way to duplicate a document to save you the time and hassle of creating a document from scratch.

Happy Computing! See you tomorrow. - Diane