A progress bar that appears automatically at the bottom of MS Word, in the middle of the Status Bar, when you save a Word document, is very useful, not only because you can watch the progress when you save a really big document, but mainly because the appearance of this bar lets you be sure that the document was indeed saved.

When a document is small, this bar doesn’t have time to show any progress (normally in green color), but only appears, having a small red x at its end. Even this brief appearance, however, is enough to let you know that the “Save” command worked, and your document is saved.

If the “Save” progress bar won’t appear, go to the Word’s options (File/Ribbon -> Options -> Advanced -> Save) and check the option “Allow background saves“.

Next time you save your document, the little progress bar at the bottom should appear – even for just a moment, when the size of your document is small.