If you’re like most people, you probably use Office 2013 to save and organize your files. But if you want to keep the backstage view of your files, you need to take some steps. To start, open the File menu and select “Save As.” Then, in the Save As dialog box, choose a location for your file. You can either save your file to a local drive or to a network drive. Next, select “Encrypt.” This will encrypt your file so that only you can access it. Now open the “Backstage View” of Office 2013 and see how your files are organized. If everything looks good, congratulations! If not, take some more steps to improve things.


When you save a new document in Office 2013, the Backstage view displays, providing the option to save the document to SkyDrive or to your computer. If you don’t use SkyDrive, you can can bypass this screen and always save to your computer.

Word 2013, Excel 2013, and PowerPoint 2013 can all be configured to skip the Backstage view (pictured above) and directly open the Save As dialog box when selecting either Save or Save As to save a new file. We will show you how to do this in Word. The procedure is the same in Excel and PowerPoint.

To disable this setting, click the FILE tab.

Click Options in the menu list on the left.

In the Options dialog box, click Save in the list of options on the left.

Under the Save documents section, select the Don’t show the Backstage when opening or saving files check box so there is a check mark in the box. Click OK to accept the change.

NOTE: Even though the option says “when opening or saving files,” this option does not seem to turn off the Backstage view when opening files. To easily skip the Backstage view when opening files, press Ctrl + O. This will directly access the Open dialog box.

Now, when you select Save or Save As in a new document (or press Ctrl + S), the Save As dialog box displays immediately, bypassing the Backstage view.

This setting is universal among Office 2013 applications. Therefore, changing it in one application, such as Word, will also change it in Excel and PowerPoint automatically.