Couldn't figure out how to do a search in these forums.

So here's my question.  I've rendering a 15 second animation of some clouds in the sky.  Turns out, I'm up against a deadline and need it now.  7 seconds are done - more than I need.

Can I stop and save the animation as it is so far?  And how do I do it?

The Escape key will abort the render. Ifyou render to a video format, and not individual frames, you won't be able to resume.

The render window says "ESC to stop."  I want to stop and save what I have so far. 

And yes, I'm rendering to video format.

BTW, my running theory is that it will save what I have so far. 

I had aborted an earlier test after 20 frames and that movie was saved.

I just would like confirmation before I stop it and loose a day's worth of rendering.

Yes, what you already have will be saved.

Just to finish up on this topic for future answer seekers...

Yes, I hit ESC to stop and the 7.5 seconds that got rendered to that point were saved to my video format.

I also saved the project with the option to continue the render later.

You won't be able to resume the render, that's what I was saying earlier. Unless you combine the 2 videos in a video editor once you render the remainder of the animation. You will need to create a new video that will start at 7.5 seconds, no resuming, and combine it to what you already have to create a single movie out of the 2 movies you'll have.