Here's a common practice: You open an existing document in Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint, make some changes to it, then save it using a different filename. That leaves the original alone, but gives you a modified copy.
Jan 15, 2012 1. The original document was saved as a Word template (dotx/dotm extension) instead of as a document (docx/docm extension); 2. The original document was made a read-only file (possibly when saved); and 3. A faulty Word installation. You should be able to. Word isn't saving documents. It just makes an endless loop. I looked online for the solution and tried starting it in safe mode and renaming the normal document.
Just one problem: Microsoft's Office 365 no longer works that way. Because of an incomprehensible change pushed out not long ago, any changes you make are automatically saved -- meaning your original document is overwritten, even if you don't want it to be.
What's more, when working on a document that's already been saved at least once, you'll notice that the 'Save As' option -- as old as the software itself -- has disappeared from the File menu.
What the heck, Microsoft?
This is especially frustrating because the update was pushed out without warning, explanation or instruction. It just happened one day. To me it seems borderline insane that Microsoft would change a fundamental method of saving Office documents without adequately informing users.
It gets worse: Although you can easily turn off the new AutoSave feature by clicking the little toggle in the upper-left corner of the screen, that turns it off only for the current document. There's no way to globally disable AutoSave.
What you can do is turn off AutoRecover, the feature that automatically creates a backup at regular intervals. That effectively disables AutoSave -- while also leaving you without the aforementioned backup.
If you're willing to do that, click File > Options > Save, then clear the checkbox next to 'Save AutoRecover information every X minutes.'
There's another way to work around this, but it means changing the way you work, and probably have worked for decades. Microsoft recommends that when you open an existing document with the intention of saving it with a different filename, you use the new 'Save a Copy' option (which is what replaced 'Save As') before you make any changes.
Ugh. What if I make changes and then decide to abandon them? Now I've got an unnecessary, unwanted copy I have to manually delete.
I wouldn't be so miffed about this if Microsoft had notified me first. Plenty of web and mobile apps present users with informative overlays when introducing them to new features. Why can't Office 365 work the same way?
If you're equally miffed, there's one more option: You can disable AutoSave by tweaking the Windows registry. That's according to a Microsoft support article. Unfortunately, the hack works only in Office 365 ProPlus. I tried to find those same registry entries in Office 365 Home and came up empty.
Four methods for working around Office 365's AutoSave feature (Techrepublic)
Microsoft just ended support for Office 2007 and Outlook 2007 (ZDNet)
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I have a MacBook Pro from 2016 and as of this morning I have not been able to save my Word documents (Word 2017). I've never had issues before.
When I press save on a new document, a message pops up saying, 'Word cannot save this document due to naming or permissions error on the destination volume.' Once I press OK to dismiss the message another message pops up and says the 'Document 13' cannot be saved as 'New Name'. Why is this happening?
J. MarcocciaJ. Marcoccia
5 Answers
The hint here is '... naming or permissions error on the destination volume.' Word is telling you that it sees corruption/damage where you want to save the document.
And I'll bet you see it even if you try to save it to a USB key as well.
Microsoft is a great provider for those of us who do tech support for a living. What that error likely means is that something in MS Word (and possibly the rest of MS Office) on your system is damaged. The part is most likely in the part of Word that writes to disk.
What I would do is run the MS Word/Office installer and reinstall (or repair if that option is available) MS Word.
Failing that it could be that the temporary (recovery) file that Word creates for every document is damaged or that the preference file for MS Word is also damaged.The former is here:
The latter is here:
Trash all the autorecovery files and trash the .plist file and launch MS Word again. That should fix it.
If not you may actually have file system damage on your HD. In that case boot into Recovery Mode, launch Disk Utility and repair/verify the disk.
Steve ChambersSteve Chambers
This is a repeating error that seems to keep coming back once you get it. You can re-install Office and it will go away for a short while, then come back. I've seen people buy a new Mac, and the problem will follow from old Mac to new. It is clearly a software problem, and it is somewhere in Word. I've spent hours reinstalling over and over, deleting every last trace if anything microsoft related. It keeps coming back. I don't know if it's random, or a conflict with some other software. But unfortunately, you may be stuck with this problem.
l008coml008com
The true problem is that word for mac (and Windows) saves in the .docx file format and word can no longer find that folder.For some reason Apple iCloud has taken the folder so that it can not be seen by word.Go to Finder and locate and then drag the 'documents' folder back up to the top of the list of finder folders.That should do it.It did for me.
SandyBoySandyBoy
I gave up and clicked the red 'Close' button, which allowed the 'Save As' box to finally appear. But don't want to live with Word like this going forward - what happened to the usual 'Save' and 'Save As' drop-downs?
bunketbunket
Check the permission of the location you are trying to save at. Make sure that 'everyone' is allowed to read and write. That fixed it for me when trying to save to desktop (permissions must have somehow changed).
ElizabethElizabeth