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How to save your spreadsheet in Excel

 - Now that your spreadsheet is coming along nicely, you'll want to save your work. To save your spreadsheet, do the following.

Excel 2007 Users

If you have Excel 2007, click the round Office button in the very top left of Excel 2007. This one:

When you click the Office button, you'll see the options list appear:

In Excel 2007, you perform all the File operations by clicking the round Office button. Clicking Close, for example, will close the current Excel spreadsheet, but won't close down Excel itself. To close down Excel, click the "Exit Excel" button in the bottom right of this dialogue box. If you want to open a recent Excel document, click its name under the Recent Documents heading.

Click Save to see the following dialogue box appear:

In the image above, we're saving our Excel spreadsheet to a New Folder we've created in the Libraries > Documents folder. But you can use the area on the left of the dialogue box to choose another location to save your work.

Notice the "Save as Type" box below the file name. The type is a XLSX file, and this is new from Excel 2007. Whenever you see this ending, you know that it is an Excel file.

Click the Save button when you're happy with the location

Excel 2010 to 2013

For Excel 2010 to 2013 users, click the Save icon in the top left of Excel (You can also click the File item just below the Save icon.) :

You'll then see this screen:

You'll see three options: OneDrive (which used to be called SkyDrive), Computer, and Add a Place:

The first option is OneDrive. This saves it to servers operated and controlled by Microsoft. This is very useful if you want to work on your Excel document from other locations. For example, you may be working on a spreadsheet in your office. Saving it to OneDrive means you'll also be able to open it when you get home from work. When you click the OneDrive option you'll be able to Sign In, Sign Up, or simply Learn More. We'll be saving to the Computer, though, so click this option. Then click the Browse option. You'll then see the same Save As dialogue box as above. Select a location to save your spreadsheet and then click the Save button.

Excel 2016

For Excel 2016 users, Click the Save icon in the top left of Excel:

(You can also click the File item just below the Save icon.)

You'll then see this screen. (Make sure Save As is selected on the left):

Under Save As, you can see four items: OneDrive, This PC, Add a Place, and Browse. The default is to save your work on your own computer (This PC), in the My Documents folder:

If you're happy to save your work in the My Documents folder, then type a name in the text box that says "Enter file name here". Click the Save button to the right and your file will saved as a XLSX spreadsheet.

If you don't want to save your spreadsheet in the My Documents folder, click the More Options link. You'll then see the same Save As dialogue box as above, for 2007 users. You can also click the blue arrow, just to the left of My Documents in the image above. You'll then see this:

Navigate to an area on your computer by clicking an item on the list. When you're happy with your chosen location, click the Save button.

All Excel Users

If you click the dropdown list, where it says Excel Workbook (*.xlsx), you will see that you can save your workbook in lots of different formats:

So, if somebody has an older version of Excel, you can save it as an Excel 97-2003 workbook. It will then be saved in the older XLS format.

Remember to save you work on a regular basis, by clicking either the round Office button in Excel 2007 or the File menu/icon in Excel 2010 to 2016. Then click the Save option. A quicker way is to just click the disk icon on the Quick Access Toolbar in the top left of Excel (all versions):

In the next part of this Excel course, you'll learn about currency options.