How to Use the New Save Options in OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

by | Aug 18, 2012

When 10.7 Lion came out, Apple introduced a new procedure for saving your documents, to prevent people from accidentally saving over their documents. Unfortunately, it was pretty confusing.

With 10.8, Apple has refined the process. On the File menu, you’ll still see Duplicate. This will still open a second copy of your file so that you can save it with a new name or in a new place, but it’s stopped giving you that really confusing, badly worded dialog box.

When you choose Duplicate, look at the Title Bar at the top of the new document window – it’s already waiting for you to change the name of the file. All you have to do is type the new name. The next time you Save, you’ll get a familiar Save As dialog box so you can change the location if needed.

If you have iCloud up and running, Pages and Numbers will try to put the file in the Cloud – you may need to switch to your Document folder manually (if you see “-tef” on the file name, just ignore it – it has to do with iCloud).

When you try to close a document you’ve never saved, there’s now a Delete button, which makes it easy to understand that you’re going to lose that content for good.

Lion’s “Save a Version” will no longer give you “save aversion.” It’s gone completely.

Lion’s Revert Document is now Revert To…, and gives you specific options including before your last save, how it was when you first opened it, and an option to Browse all the save states you’ve made.

You now also have new options to Move and Rename files.

Now here’s the fun part! If you hold down the Option key when you click on the File menu, Duplicate will change to Save As! Now you can rename your document without having two copies open.

In addition, Close changes to Close All! If you have several files open, you can now close them all at once instead of one at a time.

While how we Save files are still different from decades of habit, these changes streamline the new system.

About Alicia Katz Pollock

With a Masters in Teaching from Tufts University, a QuickBooks®️ Online Advanced Certification and more than 30 years’ experience in the tech industry, Alicia is passionate about finding creative, practical solutions to complex and everyday tech problems. She also loves a good laugh!

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