STEP SIX (Actually Saving Your File)

Ah, the time has come at last to save your letter. By now you've named it and you know it's going to be saved into the Documents folder, so all that's left to do is click on the blue Save button. When you do this, your document will still remain open, but the name you just gave your letter will appear at the top center of the document's window. With your letter safely saved, you can either click the tiny red Close button in the top-left corner of the TextEdit window or you can click on the word "File" (at the top of your screen in the menu bar) and with your mouse move down the menu to the word "Close," then click once.

SAVE OFTEN...OR ELSE...

TIP Let's say you're writing a chapter for a book. You wrote for an hour or so, and then you saved the document. The next day, you open that same document and start writing again. You've written for about 30 minutes, then suddenly the electricity goes out for just a minute or so. When it comes back on, you restart your Mac, and then reopen the chapter you were working on. Everything you wrote in the last 30 minutes will be gone. That's because the last time you "saved" was yesterday. This is why we save often while we're working (using that same Command-S keyboard shortcut I showed you earlier).