Decide what you want to keep before choosing a Save action. Scope tells you where a value applies; persistence tells you whether it survives a restart; activation tells you whether it is in use now. These are separate questions.
A current-buffer value applies to the captured buffer. A global default is live, but buffer overrides and mode policy can still take precedence. Changing it does not automatically save it, and only the command’s documented behaviour tells you whether existing buffers are updated too. Saved startup settings are retained for later sessions.
Preview an example to hear a proposal without saving or selecting it. Keep a retained draft when you intend to resume it during this Emacs session. Recover unfinished changes explains how to return to its editor. A draft is not a backup: it is lost when Emacs exits, and discarding it does not undo an earlier completed save.
Use Save to collection without selecting in the voice editor to store a voice for later use without selecting its destination palette. The detailed voice-saving procedure explains the editor’s result and partial-save states. This is appropriate for an alternative you want to keep, not yet adopt.
Save and apply stores a voice and selects its palette for this session. Activate in the palette or sound-pack manager instead selects an existing resource. After applying, check the result and repeat the original task. Some host changes need a separate confirmed speech restart, and a successful save does not establish that both speech workers acknowledged the application. See An unconfirmed Apply result when a result is incomplete.
In Voice Palettes, Use at Startup changes the palette in the saved profile without applying that profile now. A Presentation Profile stores coordinated options, palette, sound pack and spatial choices, not copies of their resources. Applying a profile also saves its selection for future sessions. Use Presentation Profiles to switch such a group of choices.
For an individual control, use its own documented Save action. Speech settings saves the displayed rate and punctuation; Sounds and output saves five volumes; a focused integration menu saves only its documented defaults. Linked editors retain their own Save/Apply actions. No one menu action saves all Emacsvox settings.
Personal rules persist. Session rules expire when Emacs exits, and buffer rules expire with their buffer. Saving a profile cannot make temporary rules or drafts permanent. If a choice disappeared after restarting, follow the persistence checks before recreating or overwriting it.
Choose Export for effective portable entries or Full backup when palette ancestry and local voice choices matter. Neither includes engines, sound-pack audio or every Emacsvox setting. Import creates an independent palette; it is not an overwrite or automatic activation. Follow Export, back up and import palettes for the exact contents and checks.