Which folder? (Word 97 SR-2)

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When I want to work on a Word document, 99.99% of the time I just doubleclick the file, Word opens, I edit the document, but when I want to save and exit, Word assumes I want to save the file in a folder I used last time I saved something in Word, which is seldom the right folder. Hence, if I don’t pay attention when saving, a document can get left in the wrong folder. Is it possible to get Word always to save a document in the folder it came from?
Clark

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Use the Save command instead of the the SaveAs command. What you described is the action we would expect only if you are using the SaveAs instead of the Save.

Another possibility is that you are creating new files instead of opening the file. Right click a word file in the Windows Explorer and see which option is bold (that is the default action when double clickingthe file). If this is not OPEN then you need to fix that.

The third possibility is that your Save has been hijacked by a helpful template (or virus).

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Here’s the thing: I run a contracting business. I have a folder full of proposals (contracts) and within that folder are templates, blank proposals for certain types of jobs. This folder resides in My Documents, but I keep the folder handy in the Start folder using PC Mag’s Folder Pointers so I can either open an existing contract or make a new one (by opening the appropriate template) fast. I should say that these templates are not Word templates (.dot), because a document template would only be accessible by opening Word, selecting File/New then picking out the proper .dot file from under the General tab of the “New” dialog. Too much clicking for me. No, if I need to write a new contact (or edit an existing one) I go to Start/Contracts and pick out a blank contract form, fill it in, then Save As (I have to do this or I no longer have a blank contract to use as a template) the new contract. The problem I’m having comes in when the folder Word thinks I want to save this contract to is not the folder I got the template out of, but rather, say, some some other folder from when I had Word open the day before. If I were to open Word, go to File/Open, navigate to the Contracts folder, open the template, fill in the blanks, and Save As…then Word would save the new document in the proper folder. But I don’t want to have to go through all that. I want to open a template fast and save it fast. I just don’t understand why Word (or all Windows programs for that matter) always go back to the most recently used folder when I want to open or save a file.
Clark

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Responding to part of what you want, rather than what you asked, what about making the templates .dot files in their own directory and putting that directory on your desktop or the office toolbar? Then you could click on the icon and double click the template, and that will give you document1 and will not go to the template directory to do the save. That at least would protect your template and clicking the save button would bring up the save as dialog.

If you always, or most often, want to save to a particular directory, you can change the Documents location setting under Tool | Options | File Locations to the directory you want to see most often. When you save a document just created from a template, save as seems to come up with that location.

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If you want Word to always revert to the folder from which the current document was opened when you choose SaveAs, add the following VBA macro to your normal template or another global template:

Sub FileSaveAs()
If ActiveDocument.Path vbNullString Then
ChangeFileOpenDirectory ActiveDocument.Path
End If
Dialogs(wdDialogFileSaveAs).Show
End Sub

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A little experimentation has revealed that Word is already doing what I want it to do (asking if I want to save a preexisting document in the folder it came from, instead of the folder that was last used). It’s just this thrid-party utility I use to enlarge the Open, Save and Save-as windows, called File-Ex. It drives me nuts that every Open and Save folder in Windows is the same size: tiny. I would prefer to have the window big, so I can pick out the file I want, without having to scroll around.
Clark

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Thanks very much. The macro worked (at first it didn’t because I copied it from what came through in the email, which was garbled; the macro as it apeared in the forum worked). The final fix was to configure File-Ex not to “Default to the last directory used for each application.”
Clark

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