Difference between saving and exporting I have read several questions (here and elsewhere) that look for applications that can save in a format instead of export in a format.  What is the difference between saving in a format, and exporting in a format?  Is it just that there is an additional dialog box, or does an exported file in some way behave differently?  Is this a style over substance issue?

I have no problem with people wanting things the WAY they want them, I just want to understand if there is a fundamental difference in the function of an exported over the function of a saved file.

Examples:  Pages exports in formats that Open Office saves in.  Pixelmator exports in formats that PhotoShop saves in (so I've been told).
AS @lhf comments export/import implies that there is some information lost during one of the processes so that you can't export and then import and get exactly the same document back.

Save usually writes the file in the format that is native to the application or in the same format as the file was opened in.

Some applications e.g. Microsoft Office will not use export as much as this but use save as to allow conversion of the format of the document and possibly lose some information e.g. Excel can save as .csv. (I don't have MS Office here and can't remember if they have an export on the file menu). The do have an import that adds the selected document to the current one so another meaning.

The examples you give are both that the file file format is native to an application ( Open Office and PhotoShop) and the other applications' export converts their own format to these on export.