G'Day Helen,
When editing a document called (say) 'Example.doc', Word creates one or
more temporary files for its own purposes.
These may have names like '~$ample.doc' (usually in the same folder as
'Example.doc') and 'AutoRecovery save of Example.asd' (in the
AutoRecover folder).
Following a successful Close of the Document, these should be deleted by
Word - but sometimes they are not.
You seem to be using one of these files for YOUR purposes - and confusing
Word into the bargain.
You should probably 'clean up' any files of this kind that you find - i.e.
delete
them OR if they seem to be valuable then rename them.

Signature
Regards,
Pat Garard
Melbourne, Australia
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> When I'm using Word and I'm using an old letter and then try to use "save
> as", my whole screen freezes. I then have to shut down and start all over
> again. I noticed when "save as" first comes up the file I was using has '~$
> right in front of my file. That seems to be when my screen freezes. It only
> does this 50% of the time. The rest of the time its OK. If I shut down the
> computer completely and bring word back up. It's fine. Please help. Helen