How to save Microsoft Office 2010 documents to SkyDrive

In this tutorial, I am going to show you how to save Microsoft Office 2010 documents to Windows Live SkyDrive; this way you can access them from any computer without the need to save them to a CD, USB drive, or any other type of storage media. Using SkyDrive is easy and convenient.

For those of you who are not familiar with Windows Live SkyDrive, this is a free online storage service from Microsoft that anyone can sign up with just a Windows Live ID or with your Hotmail (Live) email account; this will allow you to store, share, and access thousands of documents, pictures, and more. Now the cool thing is that with Microsoft Office 2010 you can save documents directly to the web with up to 25GB for free without even open the SkyDrive website. Once you save your documents, you can set the security settings to either private (only you can access them) or you can share them with family, friends, or co-workers.

To save a Microsoft Office 2010 document to SkyDrive follow these steps:

1. Start an Office 2010 application, in this case Microsoft Word 2010, work in the document and when you are ready save it, click the File menu and select Save & Send.

2. Next, you will see that you can save the document to several locations; the option that we are going to use today is Save to Web.

3. Now you need to sign in with your Windows Live ID or your Hotmail (Live) email account. These services are free, but if you don’t have either one, you can get a Windows Live ID by visiting the link Sign up for Windows Live at the bottom of the Sign In button.

Microsoft Office 2010 - File menu, Save & Send option

4. Click the Sign In button, enter your credentials, and click OK.

Windows Live Skydrive Microsoft Office 2010 - Sign in

5. Once you are signed in, Microsoft Office 2010 is going to download your SkyDrive folder structure, and then you can choose in which folder to save the document or you can easily click the New button to create a new folder. Now click Save As button, wait a few seconds, click Save and the document will be saved to SkyDrive.

Windows Live SkyDrive Microsoft Office 2010 folder structure

Windows Live SkyDrive Microsoft Office Save alert

Now that the document it’s been saved into Windows Live SkyDrive, you can access it from any computer that has an internet access, even if the computer does not have Microsoft Office 2010 installed, thanks to Microsoft Office Web Apps.

Windows Live Skydrive storage

Note: the same steps are applicable for Word 2010, Excel 2010, and Power Point 2010.
About the author

Mauro Huculak is a Windows How-To Expert who started Pureinfotech in 2010 as an independent online publication. He has also been a Windows Central contributor for nearly a decade. Mauro has over 14 years of experience writing comprehensive guides and creating professional videos about Windows and software, including Android and Linux. Before becoming a technology writer, he was an IT administrator for seven years. In total, Mauro has over 20 years of combined experience in technology. Throughout his career, he achieved different professional certifications from Microsoft (MSCA), Cisco (CCNP), VMware (VCP), and CompTIA (A+ and Network+), and he has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP for many years. You can follow him on X (Twitter), YouTube, LinkedIn and About.me.