Saving a Google doc: How?

October 30, 2021 1:47 PM

OK, I feel stupid, but nothing I find online is working. Google says look for "save" under file. Nothing under file includes the word "save," not is there anything for closing the document. Google says use "save button in right hand corner." If it exists, I can't see it. More within.

I'm not completely stupid about computers. I usually search Google when I can't figure something out, but nothing I'm finding there works with my version of docs.
I've tried every single icon. I've gone through everything on the dashboard looking for anything that indicates saving the doc.
I tried searching "save" in help. Nothing useful there.
I know Google docs save automatically, but every time I try to close the document, I get a message saying changes may not be saved. I made my last edit half an hour ago. I need another person to be able to see this. How can I make sure she gets the final version?

posted by FencingGal to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

Best answer: To the right of the document title there are three little icons. One is a cloud. When the cloud has a tick on it, the document is saved. Try making a change to the document - you'll see the icon change and the word 'Saving...' There's isn't actually a way to force the document to save. Usually waiting a second or two before you close the doc will allow the auto-save to happen.
posted by pipeski at 1:59 PM on October 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I don't think you can save a Google Doc. But if you want to be sure that someone sees it then I suppose that in addition to sharing with them you could use File->Download-->[Your choice of format: MS Word, PDF, etc]. That should open up a prompt to save a copy to your hard drive, which you could attach as an email to your intended audience.

But I can see why that message would be alarming! Do you have another device and/or another browser (or profile in your browser if you use eg Firefox containers) that you could use to double check that the document looks as you want it to? You might need to use a second email address / second google account to do this, depending on your document's permissions.
posted by col_pogo at 2:00 PM on October 30, 2021

Response by poster: Pipeski, you got it. That was fast. Thank you!

Thanks colp_pogo for the backup ideas as well.

Marking this resolved.
posted by FencingGal at 2:08 PM on October 30, 2021

Perhaps of interest, when I get the 'changes may not be saved" message, it was because I had made a comment on the document and had not yet saved the comment. You do have to click the little save button to save a comment.
posted by evilmomlady at 3:01 PM on October 30, 2021 [2 favorites]

(Or it may say "comment" rather than save, I don't recall and I'm not at my computer. I had been typing comments and hitting enter thinking that would save the comment, but it didn't.)
posted by evilmomlady at 3:05 PM on October 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Evilmomlady, that made me panic, because I had closed the document without individually saving the comments. The comments were all there when I reopened it though.
There also is no save button. But it looks like hitting enter saved the comments for me. Thank goodness!
posted by FencingGal at 4:03 PM on October 30, 2021 [2 favorites]

It's just frustratingly buggy and badly designed sometimes. Every time I panic thinking I must have left some comment unposted or that content will be lost - and there's no "show me what hasn't been saved" option, so every time you just have to hope.

Btw the shortcut for posting comments is ctrl+enter.
posted by trig at 6:32 PM on October 30, 2021 [1 favorite]