What is the difference between Save versus Save As?

When you want to retain the changes you made to a document you have two options to save or save as. Learn when to use each. Using Microsoft Word as our example, the following blog post describes the differences and when to use each.

Save

When you click on file → save, this will retain the open document in its current state.

This dialog box requires that you choose a location, name and file type. The location will be a file path where the document will be saved. By default most word processors will retain things to the documents folder. An example of a file path (location) would be

C:\Users\JohnSmith\Documents ←storage location

The next required piece is a name for the document. By default Word will name it Doc1 if it is being saved for the first time. You can replace Doc1 with another name.        

Finally, you will have to choose a file type for the document.  The file type for Microsoft Word documents are .docx files. There are many different file types used by different programs. Another example is the .pdf file type, this stands for portable document format and is used to send documents between computers and ensure they can be read by both parties.  There are many different file types for different things and you may want to consider what the file will be used for when choosing the file type.

                  

Save As

Save As will allow you to create a separate copy of the document and give it a new name. Definition here.  This will create a new document with the same content but a different name.

This method can be useful in creating a template for a certain type of document you may use over and over.

Scroll to Top