Cascading Document Windows

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated July 20, 2019)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021

Nathan noted that in Word, unlike in PowerPoint, there is no cascade functionality on the View tab of the ribbon and that arranging document windows by using the Arrange All tool can be clumsy if several documents are open. He wonders if there is a cascade tool for Word that he is missing somewhere.

Actually, the tool was dropped from Word because it is superfluous—you can cascade document windows within Windows instead of Word. You can cascade your document windows by following these steps:

Make sure that the document windows you want to cascade are visible on the desktop.
Minimize all the windows you don't want to cascade. (They should still appear, albeit minimized, on the Task Bar.)
Right-click on an empty area of the Task Bar. Windows displays a Context menu.
Choose Cascade Windows from the Context menu.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (7748) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021.

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. Learn more about Allen...

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What is 3 + 2?

2022-10-04 13:29:13

Keith Gardner

Not true on Mac. The function was not at all superfluous and its removal is a hindrance to efficiency.

2021-04-01 16:54:46

Paul Clark

in windows 7 it was possible to go into task manager ... highlight documents and then cascade them -->

So, is it possible to cascade documents in windows 10 ? .................. not just applications! .......................

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