How to Save Word Documents in Office 2011 for Mac

By Geetesh Bajaj and James Gordon from Office 2011 for Mac All-in-One For Dummies

Most of the time, saving a file in Word 2011 is a very simple task. But at times, you may want to limit access to a particular file. Or maybe you want to save an Office 2011 document so that it’s compatible with older versions of Word. The Word Save As options can accommodate these needs and more.

Just close the Word document

This may seem somewhat obvious, but Word keeps track of whether a document’s been changed since it was opened last. If you close a document after making any changes at all, Word displays a dialog asking whether you want to save changes.

Giving a Word document a new name, a new location

When you open a new, blank document, it starts off with a generic name, such as Document1. That’s not much help when you want to find your file again later, but it’s easy to fix:

Choose File→Save As from the menu bar.
(Optional) In the Save As field, type in a new name.
Navigate to the desired location and click Save.

Making Word documents secure and private

Sometimes you absolutely don’t want anyone opening or editing a document. Different levels of security are available. A low-security method lets you control who can do what with a particular document by bringing up the Save preferences dialog using any of these methods:

Choose Word→Preferences→Security from the menu bar
Choose File→Save As→Options→Show All→Security from the menu bar
Press Command-, (comma) and click the Security button

File protection in Word 2011

Macros to crack any password are freely available on the Internet, so these options are very low security. They apply only to the document listed next to Security Options for [Document name]:

Password to Open: Type a password to be required to open this document.
Password to Modify: The password you type will be required to modify this document.
Read-Only Recommended: If you select this check box, when you open the document, a dialog is displayed recommending that the document be opened in read-only mode. This helps prevent accidental overwriting of the file.
Protect Document: Same as choosing Tools→Protect Document from the menu bar and clicking the Ribbon’s Review tab, and in the Protection group, clicking Document. Requires a password to modify specified content within the document.

File privacy in Word 2011

Choose these privacy options, which apply only to the document listed next to Security Options for [Document name]:

Remove Personal Information from This File on Save. Select this check box to remove most personal information from a file. You can see and control what's in a document by choosing File→Properties and Word→Preferences→User Information from the menu bar.
Warn before Printing, Saving, or Sending a File That Contains Tracked Changes or Comments. Select this check box when you’re working with documents that may have hidden comments or tracked changes that should not get into the wrong hands.

Macro security in Word 2011

The Warn before Opening a File That Contains Macros check box causes the macro warning dialog to display whenever a file that contains macros is opened. Deselect this option setting at your peril.