Don't think that you have to wait until you finish a Word 2016 document to save it. In fact, you should save almost immediately — as soon as you have a few sentences or paragraphs.
To save a document for the first time, follow these steps:
Click the File tab.
Choose the Save As command.
The Save As screen appears, similar to the one shown here. This screen is part of Word's Backstage, which is an alternative to the traditional Windows Save As dialog box.
The Save As screen.Choose a location for the document.
To use local storage, choose This PC.
To use cloud storage on OneDrive, choose OneDrive.
A list of recent folders appears on the right side of the screen. Click a folder to choose it as the storage location.
After choosing a location, the traditional Save As dialog box appears. Or you can quickly summon that dialog box by clicking the Browse button.
If the specific folder you need wasn't shown on the Save As screen, use the Save As dialog box to navigate to that folder — or create a folder by clicking the New Folder button in that dialog box.
Type a name for your document in the File Name box.
Word automatically selects the first several words of your document as a filename and places that text in the File Name box. If that's okay, you can move to Step 5. Otherwise, type a better name.
Be descriptive! The more concisely you name your document, the easier it is to recognize it by that name in the future.
Click the Save button.
The file is now safely stored.
The document doesn't close after you save. You don't need to quit Word. You can keep working. As you work, continue to save.
You can skip the File tab process by instead clicking the Save button on the Quick Access toolbar. If the document hasn't yet been saved, the Save As screen appears.
Your clue that the document is saved successfully is that its filename appears on the document's title bar, top center of the Word window.
The Save As command can also be used to save a document with a new name, to a different location, or in a different format.
Do not save a document to removable media, such as an optical disc or a memory card. Instead, save the document to the computer's main storage device, the hard drive or SSD. If you save to removable media and that media is accidentally removed, you may lose your document or the computer may crash.
To place your document file on removable media, save and close the document. Copy the file from the computer's primary storage to the removable storage. This operation is done in Windows, not Word.
As an alternative to using removable media, save your document to cloud storage. Documents saved to OneDrive can be shared with others.