Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Word 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Word, click here: Cannot Open Multiple Word Documents.

Cannot Open Multiple Word Documents

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated November 27, 2019)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


2

Sharon indicated that she can only open one Word document at a time. Every time she opens a new document, the previous document automatically closes. She wonders how she can fix this condition.

Good question. Word definitely should not be working this way. If it happens with only a specific document (a specific document is open and it closes when you open another or when you go to open a specific document your previous document is always closed), then it could be because the document is corrupted in some manner. You'll want to do a bit of detective work to see if it is a specific document, and if it is, copy the text (minus the final paragraph mark) to a different document. The problem may then go away.

It is also possible that you really are able to open multiple documents, but that Word minimizes or hides all the documents except the one on which you are working. Check in Windows to see if there are multiple document windows open; you can then select the one you want to work with.

If the problem still exists, then it could be due to some sort of macro running on your system, or it could be due to a problem with Word itself. Try to run Word and disable any add-ins that may be loaded by using the following from the command line:

winword.exe /a

You can also try to disable any macros that are automatically run when Word is started by using this command:

winword.exe /m

Finally, you'll want to check the Startup folder for Word. You can locate the Startup folder by following these steps:

  1. Choose Options from the Tools menu. Word displays the Options dialog box.
  2. Make sure the File Locations tab is selected.
  3. In the list of File Types, choose Startup.
  4. Click on Modify.

The resulting dialog box indicates the location of the Startup folder being used by Word. Once you have the location of the Startup folder, close Word and use Windows to examine the contents of that folder. Move any programs or templates out of the folder and then restart Word. If the problem goes away, then you've found your culprit. If it doesn't go away then you may want to reinstall Word.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (7091) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Cannot Open Multiple Word Documents.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

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What is 2 + 8?

2021-12-03 14:46:28

Nigel Murray

I had the same problem as Sharon, then remembered that, through the Office program, I had switched off the shortcuts between documents in the main task bar at the bottom of the screen. To switch it back on I opened a new Office document, and navigated to Options/Advanced/Display and ticked the box called "Show all windows in the task bar". My several documents were then shown in the main task bar and I could switch between them as normal. Hope this helps.


2015-06-09 21:05:52

ZeroDayOne

After typing the aforementioned lines in an administrator command prompt, I received the following message:

'winword.exe' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

I'm running Win7 off of a Quad-core AMD chip and ASUS Mobo. Never ran into this problem before.

Ran System File Checker, yet that did not find any integrity violations.

I was attempting to upload one Word doc I saved a few years ago, but the website said that the file extension was invalid. I suspected that's because they don't accept uploaded Word docs but I won't know that for sure until I here back from this particular website.

However I find it hard to believe that it would have to do with one corrupt file, since I've now attempted to open several different word docs I've saved (even recent ones), and yet this problem still persists.

It's weird because while a Word file is open, as soon as I click on another Word file from the 'My Documents' folder, it immediately replaces the previous Word file that was open---(as if it was never there to begin with).

I admit, I've never seen Microsoft Word behave this way. It is very strange.

I am using Microsoft Office Home & Student 2007.

Maybe it has something to do with some network configuration for shared Word documents via a server, but I wouldn't know where to begin to even restore such a setting to it's default state...

Any additional insight into this matter would be sincerely appreciated.

Last thing I want to do is call Monopoly-soft so they can charge me an arm and a leg just to help me configure software I already paid for...

Thank you very much.


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