Introduction

One of the rules of computing is to save your work and to save it often.
In the event of a power failure or a computer failure, any unsaved work will be lost.

It is a good rule to save your new document before you start work and then to save it every ten minutes or before you make a major change.

When you save your work you should save it into an appropriate folder using a name which describes the contents of the document.

When Microsoft Word creates a new document it gives it a default name DocumentX (where X is a number). As this name does not describe the contents, it is best to immediately save the document using a descriptive name.

Saving a new document

To save a document and give it a new name:

• from the File menu select Save As

the dialog box shown to the right will appear

 

• change the name of the file to a sensible name

• if necessary, change where the file is to be saved

• if necessary, change the format of the file

• click the Save button to complete the saving operation

Updating a file

After a file has been saved using a descriptive name, save it regularly by:

• either click the Save icon on the toolbar OR

• from the File menu select Save

Saving in a different location

The default location to save a file is My Documents . On our network this is the best place for your work to be saved, as My Documents is located on the file server where your work is backed up regularly.

• occasionally it may be necessary to save your work to a different location such as the floppy disk (which is A:)

• it is good house keeping to organize your work into folders

• you can create a new folder by clicking the icon. You will need to give the folder a new name immediately after creation

• to move up one level of folder, click the icon

• to open a folder, double click on the folder.
  

Example drive/folder selection for Save in:

Saving in a different format

When you save a Microsoft Word document, it is usual to save the document as a Microsoft Word Document.

Some possible reasons for saving in a different format:

Reason	Use
you do not have Microsoft Word at home but you need take work home to complete using
you have an older version of Microsoft Word at home
you have a different word processing program such as WordPerfect or Microsoft Works
you need to email the work to a friend who does not have Microsoft Word
you want to create a Web page to display on the Internet
you want to create a template

If this is the case, you will need to use the Save As type option and select the format needed from the drop down list. Some sample formats are shown to the right.

Exercise

• Open Microsoft Word - which will automatically open a new document
• save the new document in My Documents with the following changes:
  • create a new folder called WordProcessing (if it does not exist already)
  • open the WordProcessing folder
  • change the document type to format file
  • give the file the name MyTestSave