You open an existing document, workbook, or presentation from within the appropriate program by clicking the Open button on the toolbar, by clicking Open on the File menu, or by pressing Command+O. Any of these commands displays the Open dialog box.
The first time you display the Open dialog box, it opens to your Documents folder. If you display the dialog box again in the same program session, it displays the contents of whatever folder you last used. You move between folders by using standard browsing techniques.
Tip
From the Open list in the lower-left corner of the Open dialog box, you can choose the way you want to open the selected file. The default option is Original, which opens the file and allows edits (provided the file is not designated as read-only). Your other options are Read-Only, which opens the file but doesn’t allow changes, and Copy, which creates and opens a copy of the file.
Each file you create is temporary until you save it as a file with a unique name or storage location. To save a file for the first time, you click the Save button on the toolbar, click Save on the File menu, or press Command+S. Each action displays the Save As dialog box, in which you can assign a file name and select a location.
If you want to save the file in a folder other than the one shown in the Where box, you can choose a standard location from the Where list or click the Expand button to the right of the Save As box to display a navigation area in which you can choose the folder you want. If you want to create a new folder in which to store the file, you can click the New Folder button that appears in the lower-left corner of the Save As dialog box when the navigation area is open.
Tip
You can change the way files are displayed in the navigation area of the Save As dialog box independently of the way they’re displayed in the Finder. Click the View buttons located near the top of the Save As dialog box to switch among icon view, list view, and column view.
After you save a file the first time, you can save changes simply by clicking the Save button on the toolbar. The new version of the file then overwrites the previous version. If you want to keep both the new version and the previous version, click Save As on the File menu, and then save the new version with a different name or in a different location. (You cannot store two files with the same name and file format in the same folder.)
Each Office file opens in its own window. You can close an individual file by clicking the Close button (the red dot) in the upper-left corner of its window, clicking Close on the File menu, or pressing Command+W. After you close all the open files, the program continues to run. You can close all open files and quit the program by clicking Quit on the File menu or pressing Command+Q.