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I was checking one of the new questions and saw it's tagged . I think it's basically the same as . I know saving and exporting is not the same but:

  • Most of the questions are about saving files in a different format, which is exporting;
  • a lot of the questions are tagged with both tags, which seems unnecessarily redundant;
  • a bunch of questions ask about "Save for Web" or "Save as" which is also exporting!
  • I don't think it's such an important concept that we need differentiation with 2 tags, or that we need a tag when asking about saving PSD files (usually the question already includes other more useful tags for the context);
  • I generally dislike the sound of ? It's not very design-y (ok maybe ignore this reason).

Shall we merge them?

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    While they're different terms in general, in terms of what could be asked about I can only think of tech support questions that deal with save only and not export. So I'm for synonymizing "save" with "export"
    – Zach Saucier
    Commented Jul 18, 2017 at 13:19
  • Funny how in " unnecessarily redundant" the unnecessarily is redundant
    – PieBie Mod
    Commented Jul 18, 2017 at 13:33
  • Oh, and I'm also for synonymizing them rather than merging
    – PieBie Mod
    Commented Jul 18, 2017 at 13:34
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    I save many copies and versions of my working files. I save a final version and stages along the way. These files are rarely seen by others. What they see are my exports. I "save for web" to make the client file or the image to go in a website. While "saving for web" I do the scaling and file selecting and resolution settings. Only when exporting do I configure the file correctly for display. My working file gets saved all the time but it is not ready to display. For me save and export are very different workflows, although export can be referred to as "saving as" "saving out" or "saving to".
    – Webster
    Commented Jul 18, 2017 at 15:23
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    So, depending on the question it may still be important to distinguish between saving and exporting.
    – Webster
    Commented Jul 18, 2017 at 15:23
  • @PieBie the "unnecessarily redundant" was meant as a joke :)
    – Luciano
    Commented Jul 19, 2017 at 7:59
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    @Webster I agree those are different actions but I don't think we need them both for GD.SE questions for the reasons mentioned and what Zach Saucier said.
    – Luciano
    Commented Jul 19, 2017 at 8:01
  • @Luciano: redundancy isn't necessarily unnecessary, so we're both fools :D
    – PieBie Mod
    Commented Jul 19, 2017 at 8:18

2 Answers 2

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Nope... export converts formats for many application and involved specific settings to get specific results.

Save/Save as involved selection of options for that application, not others.

I.E. How do I save an Illustrator file for press? vs How do I export an Illustrator file for web?

Or... You can't "save" a video with Photoshop... but you can "export" a video.

Two completely different answers.

Sure users may mistakenly use "save" when they *mean "export" or vice versa. But to me the tags are unique indicators if a user is knowledgable enough to choose the correct tag.

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  • Yes, but even in your Illustrator example save a file for press involves specific settings to get specific results. In the end the Save tag gets used mostly for questions like "how to save as emf from Inkscape" or "how to save for web from Illustrator", both of which are about exporting files. Or tech support about file sizes...
    – Luciano
    Commented Jul 28, 2017 at 8:32
  • If only everyone understood the nuanced difference between the two functions. I could've sworn you and I discussed this on a meta post a long time ago too, or maybe it was Import? Ah well, couldn't find it anyways.
    – Ryan
    Commented Aug 2, 2017 at 13:47
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While they're different terms in general, in terms of what could be asked about I can only think of tech support questions that deal with save only and not export. If anyone can find a good, on topic question (or multiple) that deals with saving and not exporting, I'd happily recant this opinion.

I'm for synonymizing "save" with "export".

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