Before you can use characteristics, they have to be activated.
If you choose Save, the system creates all characteristics that have been changed and saves the table entries. They cannot be used for analysis and reporting yet though. If there is an older active version, this is kept at first.
The system only creates the relevant objects created in the data dictionary (data elements, domains, text tables, master data tables and programs) once you have activated the characteristics.
In InfoObject maintenance, you can switch at any time between any D, M, or A versions of an InfoObject.