I have searched the forum but I can't find a definitive answer to this. For ease of use for none technical content providers, how do I set it to a default state of unpublished, so that content providers can make incremental saves without inadvertently publishing articles.

Thank you.

Image below"

http://i.imgur.com/46cT5GT.png?1

Go to:

administrator/components/com_k2/views/item

Open:

view.html.php

Find:

$item->published = 1;

Change to:

$item->published = 0;

Thank you very much that has worked.

Would there be a path in the Template to make such an amendments ? instead of changing the core components.

Unfortunately this not possible to be achieved with an override.
The core files have to be changed.

ok thanks anyway

You 're welcome Daniel