You can link the button to the form using the form attribute on the button:
<form (ngSubmit)="save()" id="ngForm" #documentEditForm="ngForm">
...
</form>
<button form="ngForm">
SAVE
</button>
You can still check its validity like this:
<button form="ngForm" [disabled]="!documentEditForm.form.valid">
SAVE
</button>
The form needs to have an ID id="example-form"
and the submit button a matching ID in the form="example-form"
See here for more details: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/button#attr-form