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New Office 365 Save option ain't so bad

Office 365 is getting yet another way to save a document and it’s not as bad as the advance publicity suggested.

We’ve now had a chance to use the new Save dialog ourselves and it’s not another attempt to force customers to OneDrive.  The change is now available for Office Fast Insiders and eventually all Office users.

The Microsoft announcement made the feature seem like it forced users to OneDrive.  It was headed “Save your files to the cloud more easily” and opened with mention of Known Folder Move which is another way to get Office 365 customers to put all their files in the cloud.

Microsoft has been shamelessly pushing OneDrive storage for all files and documents supposedly because it’s better for customers. That’s hiding Microsoft’s own agenda of wanting people to become so entwined with its cloud services that it’s harder or impossible to switch to any competitor.  They downplay the security and privacy problems with cloud storage.

New Save dialog

The new Save dialog is quite simple but with an important setting hidden away.

Clicking Save or Ctrl + S (Cmd + S ) on the Mac will open a simple save dialog.

Crucially, the default folder location is whatever default folder you’ve already set in Office. Not necessarily a OneDrive folder.

Click on the pull-down list to see more recently used folders.

The current default save folder is marked with the word ‘Default’ at right.

‘More Save options …’ link opens the large Save pane.

Change the default save folder

Change the default save folder by right-clicking on another folder location (Local, network or OneDrive) and choose ‘Set As Default Location’.

See what we mean by hidden away?  Most people would not think to right-click and set a default.

Rename and Move

What’s yet to appear is the changed title bar feature for OneDrive documents only.

At present a document can be easily renamed from the title bar. Also open folder window, start Share pane and view Version History.

Microsoft is promising the ability to move a document from a new pull-down list of folders.

Source: Microsoft

The current and upcoming title bar options are only available for documents saved to OneDrive.  There’s no good reason for that limitation, except pushing Microsoft’s corporate cloud strategy.

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