Section: Commands Available In <b>Most</b> Word Processing Programs:
...Subsection: File Handling Commands

Any level of text editor or word processor will have commands to save, load, and print your text. These commands are so frequent that you will usually see many ways to invoke them.

Save Document

Allows you to save your document onto some kind of disk. If you have already saved this document at least once, it will save the document to the same drive, directory, and file name you used last time. Saving a document really means making a copy of the codes in memory that represent the document, and copying those codes onto a disk file. If you have never given this document a name, a Save command often acts like a Save As. (see below) You might also look for a Write command, a picture of a disk, or a Save As command.

Save As...

Often you will see this command in addition to a save command. There is a subtle difference between the two commands. Save As always asks you for the name and location of your file. Most of the time, the Save command does not ask for this information. If the Save command does not know what to call the file (because you have never saved it before) it will automatically invoke a Save As. The only time you absolutely must use a Save As is when you want to load a file, make some changes to it, and save it as a NEW file with a DIFFERENT name. If you use the Save command, the new changes will be written on top of the old document. With Save As, you can force the changed document to be in a new file. This really doesn't happen very much. Many people spend their whole lives using nothing but Save.

Load or Open

You will almost always see a command that allows you to open or load a document. These terms usually mean the same thing. You will usually get some sort of a dialog box asking you for the directory and file name of a text document, and the program goes to the disk, grabs the file, and loads it into the editing area of the screen. (Actually, it loads the file into memory, and then shows a copy of the memory onto the screen.)

Print

A print command takes the document and copies it to the printer. Obviously, for this to work, you must have a printer attached to your machine. There are occasional variations to this command. You might get a dialog box that asks you which pages to print, how many copies you want, which printer you want to use (if more than one is set up on your computer), and so on. You might also see a Print Preview command that shows a picture of what the page will look like when printed. This is especially useful when you are using a program that does not support WYSIWYG.