Has it ever happened to you that you burned the midnight oil, worked very hard and ended up typing a big Word document necessary for a meeting at the office or project in your school, but in the morning you forgot where you had saved it and start fretting about it ? It is not uncommon and happens more frequently that we can imagine. The main reason for this is that we tend to save most of the files in a folder of our choice (e.g. on the Desktop) while Microsoft Word saves all the documents to the “My Documents” folder by default. If you are not in the habit of using the” My Documents” folder, then you might over look it and start thinking that the Word document is lost. A quick solution for this problem is to make Microsoft Word save the documents in a folder of your choice by default.
Here is how you can change the default save folder in Microsoft Word (2007-2013):
- Open Microsoft Word. In Word 2007, click on the big circular orb on the top-left corner and select Word Options. In other versions of Word, select File → Options from the menu.
- In the Word Options window, you have to select the Save section on the left side. Then you can click on the Browse button to choose a folder under the Default file location section. You should choose a folder that you use a lot and are certain to check if Word documents go missing.
- Click OK to save the settings.
Conclusion: Microsoft Word saves the new documents in the current user’s “My Documents” folder. But if you prefer not to use this folder, then you can save the Word documents somewhere else by changing the default file location.