How to Save a Document

How to Save a Document

To save a document means you have to create a document. Then I'll lead you through these steps after you open a program.

Activity 1: Saving a document

1) Open a program on your Windows or Macintosh computer.

If you don't know how to do this, click below. Clicking on these links will open another browser window with explanations and instructions on how to open applications on the kind of computer you've got. Once you've opened an application, close that new browser window and you'll be right back here!

I have a Mac

I have a Windows PC

2) Type something (any few words) into the document window.

3) Call down the File menu and click on the Save menu item. You will get a dialog box that looks like this:

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Mac:

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Windows:

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About the Save As... dialog box

The Save As... dialog box differs some between individual different applications but all have three basic functions. The Save As... dialog box allows you to:

• tell the system where you want the file saved,
• give the file a name and
• (if you care) change the file format.

About Save vs. Save As...

You'll note that the above steps you call down the Save As..., not the Save menu item. If you have already given a file a name and a place to live, Save will simply save changes you make into the existing file. If you have yet to give a file a name and a place to live, the Save menu item will automatically call up the Save As... dialog box.

Now to continue with Activity 1

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4) Now that you have the Save As... dialog box open, type in a name (like Martha).

5) Change the top part of the dialog box so that the file will be saved to the Desktop. (You change the location of where the file will live by clicking on the pop-down menu and going to the menu item Desktop and clicking there.) Your dialog box will now look like this:

6) Now click the Save button. This will cause three changes:

a) The dialog box will go away (that's OK -- you're done with it now),

b) the top title bar of the window change and will now show the name of the file and

c) if you look at where you saved the file (in our case on the desktop) you'll see the icon of the document you created! It will look something like this:

That's how you use the Save As... dialog box!

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