Your Guide To:

Understanding "Save" and "Save As"

by Ethan Lewis

October, 2001

Introduction

Saving files is one of the most important skills to master for anyone who hopes to be productive on a computer. This introductory lesson is part of a series of How-To's on basic computer skills. This page will refer to the Microsoft Word 2000 program for Windows; however, everything covered here will work virtually identically for any word processing program on any brand of computer. If you are using a different word processing program you may find that the screens look a bit different, and that some commands will appear in different menus, but without too much searching you should be able to find the equivalent commands no matter what program you are using.

How To Use What You Have Created as Templates (Save vs. Save As):

If you had to type everything a computer printed, a computer wouldn't provide much of an advantage over a typewriter. One of the principal strengths of a computer is its ability to use previously saved files as templates for new work. This makes sense if you understand that the computer stores your work onto disk when you use the Save command. It actually transfers everything you see on the screen (and therefore what is stored in the main memory of the computer) over to the disk. Please understand that "disk" in this case refers to floppy disks and network storage areas as well as a hard disk.

You can transfer the saved file back to the main memory of the computer by choosing the Open option from the File menu. You should save your work as soon as you begin. Within the first minute of writing you should save your work, and then try to save often as time progresses. You will need to save this work from the main memory of the computer to a disk. After the work is saved you can continue to work or you can quit the word processing program and shutdown the computer. When you want to resume working on your document, launch the word processing program, and then pick the Open command from the File menu. By opening the previously saved file you will be transferring a copy of the file from the disk to the main memory of the computer (where it is then displayed on the screen for you to continue your work). If you now change the text on the screen the document you have stored in the main memory of the computer will look different from the document previously saved to disk.

By choosing the Save option you will save the changed file back onto the disk, replacing the previously saved version. Save saves what is in the main memory of the computer back onto the disk. If a file is on disk with the same name, it deletes that file, and saves what is in the main memory of the computer to disk with that name. What you see as the user is that you have saved the new version of this file to disk, replacing the old version. By choosing the Save As option you can save the changed text onto the disk using a different file name. The original disk file will remain on the disk unchanged. The end result for you as the user is that you will have the original file stored on disk with the original name. You will also have a second file, saved on disk with a different name, which will be an updated version of the original file.

Some ideas for using the Save As option:

• If you write a certain kind of report periodically, type the report in and save it. When the time comes to write the next report, open the previous report then Save As to a different file name (one idea is to include the date in the filename), and change the information. An example for faculty would be advisor letters. Create one file of your Fall term letters. Save the file as "[advisee name] Fall 2001.doc". When the time comes to write the Spring letters, open the Fall file, then Save As "[advisee name] Spring 2002", change all the dates from November to June, and then replace the bodies of the students' letters. You will now have two separate files with different information.

• Writing to employers or colleges. If you are saying the same thing to many people but want to record every letter written, write the original letter with no names or addresses. Whenever you need to send this letter, open the original file, add the individual name and address, and use Save As to keep the file with a filename that indicates the addressee of the letter.

Always remember to save files with distinctive names. It doesn't do you any good to have 7 documents called "Letter to George"; make sure that the name of the file helps you remember it at a later date. Also, don't forget to save the file with the proper file extension, the three letters at the end of the name following a period. Use .doc for Word documents, .xls for Excel documents, .ppt for PowerPoint. If you need help learning other file extensions, please ask me.