Open workbooks in the same Excel instance

Question

I may not be asking the question correctly, so I will explain what I want to accomplish.

I have a user running Excel 2016.  He opens about 30 to 40 Excel documents at a time for a certain project.  When he wants to minimize or close the documents he has to do it one at a time.  He wants to be able to hit the minimize or close buttons and have all the documents minimize or close at the same time.  I hope this makes sense.  If so, where do I make the change to have Excel open all of these docs in one instance?

thanx

Answer 1

If you hold down Shift while clicking the close button in the upper right corner of any open workbook, it acts as Close All. You'll be prompted to save any modified workbooks, with an option to save them all:

To minimize all workbooks, you could add the following macro to your personal macro workbook Personal.xlsb:

Sub MinimizeAll()

    Dim win As Window

    On Error Resume Next

    For Each win In Application.Windows

        win.WindowState = xlMinimized

    Next win

End Sub

If desired, you can assign this macro to a custom keyboard shortcut and/or to a Quick Access Toolbar button.

Answer 2

I may not be asking the question correctly, so I will explain what I want to accomplish.

I have a user running Excel 2016.  He opens about 30 to 40 Excel documents at a time for a certain project.  When he wants to minimize or close the documents he has to do it one at a time.  He wants to be able to hit the minimize or close buttons and have all the documents minimize or close at the same time.  I hope this makes sense.  If so, where do I make the change to have Excel open all of these docs in one instance?

thanx

I have 3 Workbooks open at the moment.

Right click on EXCEL in the TASK Bar then click on:-

Close all windows

EXCEL should now flash (orange) in the Task Bar.

Click on EXCEL in the Task Bar.

Click on 1 of the Workbooks in the Task Bar.

All items should be brought down.

NOTE THAT user might have to respond to some EXCEL Workbooks that might need to be saved (answer YES or NO).

If my memory serves me correctly the ability to open different Workbooks in 1 instance is pre EXCEL 2007 days.

Answer 3

Hi nchjls

The user should just use this shortcut in Windows 10 - Windows Key + D to toggle between all open workbooks and their Desktop, that would be the quickest option . . .

Another keyboard shortcut to minimize all open Windows is the Windows Key + M, however that does not toggle the Excel windows back up when you press that shortcut a second time . . .