When I "Save As" a new document in Word 2002, the document saves both
the way I TELL it to, and also with a "~" in front of it. The one with
the tilde ( ~ ) in front of it is gibberish and I must delete it
manually, before trying to "Save" further. This is new withing the
past two weeks. What happenned?

This may be helpful:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;211632

Many thanks Pink. The article sort of explains why, although I do not
thoroughly understand it. You've been a great help! ret767pilot-ga

Without looking at what pinkfreud linked to...
Word always creates a temporary file of the document on which you are
working. Once you close that document or Word itself, those temporary
files should go away. If they do not, then Word could still be running
in the background, and you can determine this by hitting Ctrl+Alt+Del
and looking for winword.exe in the running processes. If you are
closing Word and it remains running in the background, then likely you
need to do Word troubleshooting. Steps can be found at
www.theofficeexperts.com/word.htm

The reason that Word is *suddenly* doing this is likely that you were
not viewing hidden and system files previously, and you are doing so
now. The setting for this is done by double-clicking MyComputer, hit
Tools-Folder options, then the View tab. You'll see "show hidden files
and folders" and you can uncheck it. Some operating systems may be
slightly different (I have XP), but the settings are very similar.

I hope this helps!

dreamboat,

Yes this DID start suddenly. It only occurs on my computer that's
running XP Home, and does NOT do it on my one running XP Pro. Thanks
for your comment. I did follow your sugestion to go into "My Computer"
etc., and followed your instructions, which solved the problem. Many
Thanks!!!