Saving Presentations

Introduction

Whenever you create a new presentation in PowerPoint, you’ll need to know how to save in order to access and edit it later. As with previous versions of PowerPoint, you can save files to your computer. If you prefer, you can also save files to the cloud using OneDrive. You can even export and share presentations directly from PowerPoint.

Save and Save As

PowerPoint offers two ways to save a file: Save and Save As. These options work in similar ways, with a few important differences.

• Save: When you create or edit a presentation, you’ll use the Save command to save your changes. You’ll use this command most of the time. When you save a file, you’ll only need to choose a file name and location the first time. After that, you can just click the Save command to save it with the same name and location.
• Save As: You’ll use this command to create a copy of a presentation while keeping the original. When you use Save As, you’ll need to choose a different name and/or location for the copied version.

About OneDrive

Most features in Microsoft Office, including PowerPoint, are geared toward saving and sharing documents online. This is done with OneDrive, which is an online storage space for your documents and files. If you want to use OneDrive, make sure you’re signed in to PowerPoint with your Microsoft account. 

To save a presentation:

It’s important to save your presentation whenever you start a new project or make changes to an existing one. Saving early and often can prevent your work from being lost. You’ll also need to pay close attention to where you save the presentation so it will be easy to find later.

1. Locate and select the Save command on the Quick Access Toolbar.

• If you’re saving the file for the first time, the Save As pane will appear in Backstage view.
• You’ll then need to choose where to save the file and give it a file name. Click Browse to select a location on your computer. You can also click OneDrive to save the file to your OneDrive.

• The Save As dialog box will appear. Select the location where you want to save the presentation.
• Enter a file name for the presentation, then click Save.

• The presentation will be saved. You can click the Save command again to save your changes as you modify the presentation.

You can also access the Save command by pressing Ctrl+S on your keyboard.

Using Save As to make a copy

If you want to save a different version of a presentation while keeping the original, you can create a copy. For example, if you have a file named Client Presentation you could save it as Client Presentation 2 so you’ll be able to edit the new file and still refer back to the original version.

To do this, you’ll click the Save As command in Backstage view. Just like when saving a file for the first time, you’ll need to choose where to save the file and give it a new file name.