How can I change the default save location of Office for Mac?

I have Office for Mac 2011 and unlike Office PC, I can't find how to change the location where my files are to be saved.

The default position doesn't suit my needs and I spend a lot of time "navigating" to the folder where I store all my projects.

I would like to open a file, edit it's contents, and "save as" a different file name, but to the same file folder from which the document was originally opened... just like you can on a PC.

Solution 1:

The File Locations preference pane allows to to specify the location for all documents to be saved.

In Word Preferences... select File Locations:

When in File Locations, set the path you want Word to use by clicking in the Location field. The default setting, which appears blank in the screencap below, is to ~/Documents.