Word 2010 Viewing Multiple Documents

[hlewton]

I am trying to get all documents I open in Word to be available to me by just switching windows under the View Tab. I have found the option "Show all windows in the taskbar" and unchecked it. Still when I open more then 2 documents it opens more than one separate window and they all still show on the taskbar as separate windows. However, it appears that there are only two instances of Word open because that switch windows option on the view tab will allow me to switch to one other document. If I want to get to the remaining open documents I have to go to another separate window then sometimes it too will allow me to use that option to switch to another open document. Then there is the case I just tried opening 10 documents and only one of the separate windows offered any other document to switch to and again all 10 open documents showed up on the taskbar. I checked and the "Show all windows in the taskbar" option is still unchecked. So is it possible to make Word 2010 open all documents in one instance of Word where that switch windows option on the view tab actually allows navigating between open documents? If so how is it done?

Thanks

[Rudi]

What is the setting in your taskbar properties?

2013-11-04_18h07_35.jpg

[HansV]

This is a very stupid bug in Word 2010: if you open multiple documents from Windows Explorer, they will be opened in several separate instances of Word. This didn't happen in Word 2003 or before.

You can, however, still open multiple documents in a single instance of Word, by opening them from within that instance. In other words, start Word, click the Open button, and select multiple documents in the Open dialog.

[hlewton]

What is the setting in your taskbar properties?

2013-11-04_18h07_35.jpg

"Always combine, hide labels." is what I see along with "Use Small icons" and Use Aero Peek to preview the desktop.

Thanks.

[hlewton]

This is a very stupid bug in Word 2010: if you open multiple documents from Windows Explorer, they will be opened in several separate instances of Word. This didn't happen in Word 2003 or before.

You can, however, still open multiple documents in a single instance of Word, by opening them from within that instance. In other words, start Word, click the Open button, and select multiple documents in the Open dialog.

That answers it then because I was using Windows Explorer to open them. Seems crazy they haven't corrected it yet.

Thanks for the information.

[hlewton]

Yep Hans it works exactly as you said by opening the documents from within Word itself. However, that way sure is a pain in the old, you know what. Again I wish MS would fix that bug.

[Amelia43]

I am unsure whether the following may be helpful in your situation, but I have been using OfficeTab for some time. It is a relatively inexpensive and very useful piece of software, which allows multiple tabbed Word documents, Excel or PowerPoint files to be opened, each with its title in the tab, and allowing the files to be closed singly or simultaneous closure of all, with a helpful reminder if one or more of the files has not yet been saved. There is an Enterprise version for users of Access, Project, Visio etc
http://www.extendoffice.com/product/off ... pQod8SQAvA
Best wishes
Dianne

[hlewton]

Thank you for that information. It does look rather appealing. Actually I work with more multiple Access files at one time then I do Word documents and even the enterprise version does not seem that expensive.

[hlewton]

What is the setting in your taskbar properties?

2013-11-04_18h07_35.jpg

"Always combine, hide labels." is what I see along with "Use Small icons" and Use Aero Peek to preview the desktop.

Thanks.

Not sure what is going on or if I am doing something wrong. When I tried this back when this was originally posted it worked fine but for some reason now I cannot seem to open multiple documents within one instance of Word. I have clicked on them separately by choosing the Open button twice, ctrl clicked on them choosing the Open button only once, and double clicked on them choosing the Open button twice but I only get the last file I choose to open in Word and the the Windows button on the View tab is greyed out. Could some setting in Word have changed or what am I doing wrong?

I haven't even tried this on the Word 2013 machine so I have no idea how that would work.

Thanks.

[HansV]

Try the steps in How to troubleshoot problems that occur when you start or use Word.

[hlewton]

Not sure what is going on but I looked that all over and the only thing I found that I was comfortable in doing was checking to see it the "Show All Windows In The Task bar" was still checked and it wasn't. Don't have any idea how it got changed but it did. So after I changed that back I tried again to open multiple documents and this time it worked but still it opened them in separate instances of Word and the Windows button was still greyed out. So even though I am opening within Word itself it is acting the same as if I opened them using Windows Explorer.

[HansV]

Unless you prefer to live with this situation, I think it's time to try some of the other steps.

[hlewton]

Unless you prefer to live with this situation, I think it's time to try some of the other steps.

The other steps were deleting some registry keys that I saw. Is that what you mean because I didn't see anything that specifically mentioned the problem I think I have? Maybe I missed that but I didn't even see it mentioned and I went to MS's site and did a search there as well. Two of the keys they talked about deleting seemed to mention add on and, as far as I know, I am not using add on.

I still the original disks for Office 2010 does it have a repair like older versions of Word had? I guess if I feel this problem is serious enough I'd feel more comfortable doing that. However, I really don't work with multiple documents that often but I did today and it is just a pain with this version of office.

[HansV]

Yes, you could try repairing Office 2010. It may help, and if not, it won't do any harm.

You can also try the Fixit troubleshooter - there's a version for Windows XP/Vista, and one for Windows 7/8/8.1:

S0048.png

[hlewton]

Thanks Hans.

[hlewton]

Hans I don't mean to belabor the point but I just turned on the machine with Word 2013 and even though it doesn't have that "show all windows on the task bar" option that I can find, it is acting exactly the same as the Word 2010 in that if I open 2 documents it opens two separate instances of Word. I did not mess with the normal.dot or anything else that I remember. Don't use add ons and I have all current updates and am wondering if maybe one of these caused this to happen. Seems it is just too coincidental to be happen identically on two machines with different versions of Word.

On the Word 2013 machine I completely uninstalled Word 2003 before getting Office 365 and it sis its thing as far as installing the program. The only change I remember making is telling it to store my documents on my local hard drive.

[HansV]

I'm afraid I can't explain that. Both Word 2010 and Word 2013 should be able to open multiple documents from within the Word application itself. It works for me both in Word 2010 (at work) and in Word 2013 (at home).

(The "Show all windows in the Taskbar" option has been removed from Word 2013)

[Amelia43]

It may be worth revisiting OfficeTab- it now is compatible with Office 2013. http://www.extendoffice.com/product/office-tab.html
I can work on multiple Word, PPT or Excel files which are open simultaneously using this software. Inexpensive and reliable. I hope that you find a solution to your problem.

[hlewton]

Thank you both. I am going to follow that link for the Office Tab and see what that is all about.

Hans please let me ask you this. How exactly do you open the documents once you have Word open. I choose the File Tab, then Open, and once I get to the My Documents folder I have been Ctrl clicking each file, then selecting Open at the bottom of the dialog window and it opens two separate instances for me. I can live with that but sure wonder why both my machines do this.

[HansV]

I followed the same method. It seems impossible to me that the documents would open in different instances of Word if you open them from within Word.