I learnt this, I thought, I could spread the word
Go to Site Actions –> Site Settings –> Manage site features under Site Actions.
Deactive the SharePoint Server Publishing feature, then go back to the Site Settings page.
You should now see the save as site template link.
After you save the template, turn back on SharePoint Server Publishing.
Neel's Sharepoint Blog 
That worked. Thanks! I think they added this feature to make sure you really want to create a site template.
Thanks….that helped.
Nice post it worked a treat
Great !! It worked, thanks.
Thanks, IT helped me a lot.
What also works, is just putting “/_layouts/savetmpl.aspx” manually in your URL, behind the basic URL-part of your to-be-backupped-site.
This, for example: http://sharepoint-url/subsite_if_applicable/_layouts/savetmpl.aspx
Accidentally voted this down. Was trying “savetempl.aspx” instead of “savetmpl.aspx”. It works in 2007 and 2010.
the publishing site doesn’t propogate well. MSFT did this on purpose so that you aren’t trying to save the publishing feature into a site template. you can save any site as a template so long as it does not have the publishing feature activated.
Thank you so much for this. I’ve been designing my own template for my SharePoint pages and this option was missing for me for a while. Very helpful advice.
thanks…good post
Deactivating publishing feature could be dangerous sometime as your site could get really messed up…
Reza,
You can deactivate and use the save site as template feature then activate publishing feature
THank you for the comment
Neel
So if I deactive it, save it as a template and activate it after that -> I will not lost anything (because I have infopath forms into my lists and very important information to my sharepoint) ?
Not need to deactivate the Publishing feature, you can just use http://yoursitename/_layouts/savetmpl.aspx url to access the Save as Template page
Related to the warnings about deactivating the publishig features. http://blogs.technet.com/b/stefan_gossner/archive/2007/09/19/save-site-as-template-option-and-the-publishing-feature.aspx
Thank you easy straight forward non-IT and “PowerUserFriendly”! Great!!!
Thanks for the tip
Cameron, thanks for the comment, please subscribe to my blog