The Difference Between Save & Save As
I’ve noticed that some students (and maybe their teachers) are not sure about when to use Save and when to use Save As. Here are some general rules that you might present if you discuss this topic:
Save As presents a dialog box that allows you to select where you want to save a document and what you want to name it. Save works behind the scenes because it already has that information.
Use Save or Save As if you create a new document and it has never been saved. No matter which you select in this case, if a document has never been saved, you’re going to get the Save As dialog box. I encourage students to routinely select Save unless they have a special reason to select Save As. (Read on.) This minimizes the chances that they will end up with several versions of the same document when they do multiple saves during a work session.
Use Save if you edit a document that has been saved before. In this case, Save will replace the older copy with the newer copy without bothering you about where to save it or what to name it.
Use Save As if you want to save a copy of a document in a different location or you want to save a copy of a document using a different name. My rule of thumb is to use Save unless this last case applies.