Save a project

You can save your project in several different file formats, including the formats used by previous versions of Microsoft Office Project, and the format used by Microsoft Office Excel. If your project plan may meet the needs of other projects in your organization, you can save it as a template.

If your project is saved to Microsoft Office Project Server and you would like to get additional input from others on your project's data, you can save it for sharing with others. This enables you to provide the project plan to others before it is ready to be published.

Note: You cannot save files using the trial version of Project 2007.

What do you want to do?

Save my project

Save my project for sharing with others

Save my project as a template

Save a local project file to Project Server

Save my project

Saving a project is not the same as checking in a project or publishing a project. When you save your project to Project Server, it is marked as being checked out to you and it is only available to you. Close the project to check it in to Project Server. To make the project available to your team members, publish the project.

1. Click Save .

2. If this is the first time you that are saving the project, in the Save to the Project Server dialog box, type a name for the project in the Name box.

   If you are just saving changes to an existing project, then you are finished with this procedure .

3. To set any enterprise custom fields in the project, click the Value field for a custom field, and then select the value. You must enter data for custom fields that are required, indicated by an asterisk (*) after the field name.

4. Click Save.

5. To check the project in to Project Server, click Close on the File menu or close the project window.

If you close the project window or exit Project without saving your last change, the Close dialog box is displayed. In the Save Changes section, click Save to save the changes that you have made to the project, or click Discard Changes to close the project without saving your changes. In the Check in section, click Check in to check the project back in to Project Server, or click Keep project checked out to leave the project checked out to you, which prevents others from making changes.

Tip: You can also save a project to the Portable Document Format (PDF) file format . Learn how to save a file to PDF.

Notes: 

• If you want your changes to be visible to Project Web Access users, you must publish the project. Find links to more information about publishing in the See also section.

• If you do not want to save the project to Project Server, click Save as File on the Save to Project Server dialog box. On the Save As File dialog box, click Global items except enterprise custom fields to save all items from the enterprise global template except for the custom fields, or click Currently loaded global items to save only those items from the enterprise global template that are used in this project. Select a location to save the file, and then click Save. You can save a project in the file format used by Microsoft Project 2000 - 2002 and Microsoft Office Project 2003. You can also save a project as a Microsoft Office Excel Workbook or PivotTable file, a text (tab delimited) file, a CSV (comma delimited) file, or an XML file.

• If your organization has set required enterprise custom fields, you will be prompted to select a value for them. If you don't know the appropriate values for a custom field, check with your server administrator.

• In the Project Information dialog box, you can select only enterprise custom fields.

• After saving a project, you may want to verify whether the project is checked in or checked out of Project Server. Click Open , and then review the status in the Open dialog box. If you check this immediately after saving a project, the save operation may still be in the server queue. Wait a few minutes, and then press F5 to refresh the Open dialog box.

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Save my project for sharing with others

If someone else has valuable input regarding your project's data, it may be easier to send the project to that person and have him or her make changes directly in the project plan, especially if the person does not have access to your Project Server.

Important: The person with whom you are sharing the project must have Microsoft Office Project Professional 2007 or Microsoft Office Project Standard 2007 installed.

1. On the File menu, click Save For Sharing.

2. In the Save in box, select the drive and folder where you want to save the project.

3. In the File name box, type a name for the shared project.

   Tip: It is a good idea to name the project using some indication that it is a shared project. For example, for a project called "Organize customer conference," you might name the shared version "Organize customer conference - Shared."

After you save a file for sharing, you can send the saved file to someone else to make changes directly in the project plan. While the project is being shared, you cannot open the file for editing from Project Server. Only the shared file can be modified.

When all changes have been made to the shared file, the next step is to save the changes back to Project Server.

To save the changes in the shared file back to the file on Project Server, open the shared file on the computer where you initially saved the file for sharing, and connect to Project Server. On the File menu, click Save As, and then click Save. The version of the file saved on the server is updated, and the project is no longer only available in read-only format.

Note: 

• The shared file can only be saved back to Project Server from the computer where you initially saved it for sharing.

• If there are pending operations for the project, such as task updates from team members, you must wait for those pending operations to finish processing before you can successfully save the project for sharing.

• To make further changes to a shared project after it has been saved back to Project Server, you must save the project for sharing again. The shared file can only be saved back to Project Server one time.

• If the shared file is lost, or becomes unavailable for any reason, the server administrator can force a check-in of the project on Project Server.

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Save my project as a template

To reuse an existing project as the basis for a new project, you can save it as a template. When saving a project as a template, you are given the option to remove baseline data, actuals, resource pay rates, fixed cost information, and task publishing status.

1. On the File menu, click Save as.

2. If the project you want to save as a template is saved in Project Server, click Save as File on the Save to Project Server dialog box.

3. On the Save As File dialog box, click Currently loaded global items to save only those items from the enterprise global template that are used in this project.

4. In the Save in box, select the drive and folder where you want to save the template.

5. In the File name box, type a name for the template.

6. In the Save as type box, click Template (*.mpt).

7. Click Save.

8. Select the check boxes for data that you want to remove from your project file.

9. Click Save.

Note: Project includes several predefined project templates that you can use or customize for your own projects.

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Save a local project file to Project Server

If you have a project saved locally, you can save that project to Project Server to make it accessible to others in your organization.

1. Open Project and connect to Project Server.

2. Open the project that you have saved locally.

3. On the File menu, click Save As.

4. On the Save to Project Server dialog box, type a name for the project in the Name box.

5. To include any enterprise custom fields in the project, click the Value field for a custom field, and then set the value.

6. Click Save.

7. To check the project in to Project Server, click Close on the File menu, or close the project window.

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