Enough With the Floppy Disk: A Microsoft Petition?
Mar 4th, 2008 by msdanielle
I’ve had enough! A pet peeve of mine is the “Save” icon in the toolbar of Microsoft Word — an image of a 3.5″ floppy disk. It may have been relevant to us in 1999, but after the turn of the century many of us found better ways of saving and transferring our data.
Oh, the floppy disk, so last century. I remember carrying around my final papers and resume on mine. While there are people who still use floppy disks, it seems an industry outdated means of representing data storage. Am I wrong? Look, I took a screen shot of the icon in MS Word 2008.
Does this annoy anyone else? Look how nicely the New, Open, and Print icons look. The Save icon just sort of spoils the flow of it. A Web 2.0 looking image doesn’t make it anymore relevant to this century. Remember the jingle, “One of these things is not like the others…”? That would be you, Save icon.
Should I attempt to bring this to the attention of Microsoft? Would they hear my cries to replace it with an image of a hard drive? Would any of you sign my petition? Pages for Mac has saved me the visual agony by not having a Save icon. Thank you, Apple.
[This has been a rant by your friendly neighborhood marketer and MS Word user, MsDanielle.]
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Good point Danielle, I agree but would anyone know what a hard drive looked like? I mean, non-geeks have no idea where their files go when they click “save”.
i would have to argue that my 17 year old sister probably had to be told what the floppy disk was.
but i agree about people not knowing where their files go. that i guess will never change. like when you open a temp file. you save it, then try to find where it is. you’d have to “save as” to find the folder (if you don’t know where the temp folder is) or save it somewhere else. i’m sure there are millions of people who are fearful when they have to actually save something 
What do you mean 1999? I was still using floppies in 2005
Ah! I hate it too! But the floppy drive has become so synonymous with ’save’ that I think it will be a hard icon to replace.
You would have my signature.
thanks andrew!
Everyone just knows its the save button. I would love to campaign for a replacement, but a lot of people just hate change.
so ppl don’t see it as the floppy you mean? it’s just an icon for “save”?
Unfortunately, I don’t think that floppy disc icon is going to go anywhere. It’s here to stay, forever! You’re going to be haunted every time you open word, for the rest of your life!
A hard drive icon would be nice..maybe a portable hard drive icon.
how can they keep it forever?! it BAFFLES me! it’s a FLOPPY disk for heaven’s sake!! argh…. so i’m going to be 80 years old and using MS Word 2058 and have to click on the floppy disk?? ayayay…
portable would be nice… i thought about that one too
Lol definitely, but i like floppy disk icon… remembering those viruses every now and then.
If it ain’t broke don’t fix it… can you imagine the confusion it would cause… very bad plan… I may start a petition to keep it haha
you’re foiling my plan, jez!!
It is not a floppy disk icon, it’s just a Save icon! It’s a symbol which dose not represent a floppy disk to anyone, its’ meaning is saving your work. It’s here to stay.
The New icon usually looks like a blank sheet of paper! What does paper has to do with creating a new file? Nothing, of course, it’s just a visual representation, just like the floppy disk which represents saving.
but paper isn’t obsolete! it pains me to submit that it’s “just a save icon”…
Hah! I never noticed that before, D. Good point! Though, no it doesn’t bug me. At least it looks like a 3.5″ floppy, not a 5.25″ one, right?
But what would you suggest they replace it with? An icon of a safe? A portable hard drive? A USB flash reader?
And yes, I’d sign your petition. So go for it!
it will bug you from this point forward. trust me.
i think a hard drive would suffice. portables all look different…
They will have to reshoot and edit some scenes of Sandra Bullock in “The Net”.
I’m the kind of guy that uses shortcuts for just about everything.. didn’t even realize the old school save button.
Although, because we’ve been using that icon for so long, i can’t even think of a different shape or image to use!
Hey Jeff-
How about a button with “Ctrl-S”, or just “S”?
hey michael, what if they got rid of the button. you think that would totally really throw people off??
angry as usual, i see. reminds me of carol. btw she still haunts my dreams. thanks.
who is carol? you missed out on a fun dinner. you going to ad:tech??
Of course few people have been bugged by this, or even noticed it: people are just used to clicking the floppy disk to save. I believe when this icon appeared there were hard drives around; but then, as now, few people would actually recognize a hard drive for a hard drive icon to make sense. Now I suppose everyone would recognize a USB drive - but then again they look so different nowadays. And what would we do if USB drives (or even hard drives, who knows) become obsolete? Change it again? Why change it if it is familiar as it is now? Isn’t that the point, shouldn’t an icon be familiar so as its meaning would be instantly recognized?
I have to say that I’d be confused and annoyed if the Save icon ever got changed to something else: the reason is that, whatever it is, it’s not going to make me think of saving. If I saw a hard drive then I’d be like: What is this? Does this open my hard drive or what? If I saw a USB drive I’d think: better not press that because I don’t have a USB drive plugged in.
Maybe that’s just me, maybe I’m getting old and not able to adapt so easily anymore…but please don’t change things that are familiar and don’t do any harm…
i don’t think anything external would work since every company makes a different version of a USB flash drive, or an external hd.
so you’d be annoyed if it changed? i’m more annoyed at having to look at the thing, rather than wondering what it means, since i don’t ever click on it — i just control-S. and it would still say “Save” under it… i doubt that many people who don’t mind the icon go into their preferences and choose to “view icons only.”
the floppy disk needs to die. sorry.
So it needs to die because you said so? Because you are annoyed by looking at it? Don’t look at it then…
Good luck with your anti-floppy crusade Danielle, I’m not going to try to stop you. In fact I think if people didn’t try so much to fix things that aren’t broken, we’d all be so much more focused on things that actually matter…
these are just my ramblings and yes i think it needs to die because it’s obsolete not bc i said so. this thread isn’t serious btw… well i’m glad i got people talking about it at least so thanks
Good point, but I don’t think the icon’s going to change anytime soon. What should replace it, a hard disk, CD burner, or memory stick.
I don’t think the floppy disk is quite dead and buried yet. My wife got one in the mail this week from a government dept …obviously they haven’t quite made the 21st century yet.
Damnt! I just realized even google is using the floppy in google docs!
Grr. Add them to the petition!
I’d sign your petition. Does anyone have any ideas for a suitable replacement? There seems to be no set medium at the minute, anything from cd/dvd to usb drive.
How about some variety with the SAVE icon? We could have an icon representing a pile of coins (as in Savings), or a safe with a centre dial. Some other ideas would be, possibly, better!