The work you do with an application is stored in files. These may be on your computer's hard drive, or on a removable device such as a USB flash drive. You open a file to examine it or work on it, and you save a file to store your work. When you are done working with a file, you close it.
All GNOME applications use the same dialogs for opening and saving files, presenting you with a consistent interface. The following sections cover the open and the save dialog in detail.