Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Counting Open Document Windows.

Counting Open Document Windows

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated January 27, 2024)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021


Christine is writing a macro and needs to figure out how many document windows are open. The traditional means of doing this is to use the Windows.Count property, in the following manner:

iNumWindows = Application.Windows.Count

When executed, iNumWindows will contain the number of open document windows in Word. The problem is that it returns a count of any window that Word may consider a document, even those that contain e-mails.

As far as we can determine, there is no way around this inclusive behavior of Word. If a person is using Word as their e-mail editor, and they open an e-mail or two, those windows are considered document windows by the program. Granted, they are not documents destined for a disk file or for the printer, but they are documents nonetheless.

In addition, there is no other flag that we could locate that would allow one to differentiate between a regular document window and an e-mail message window. If such a flag were available, then someone could easily check the windows and produce their own count of documents vs. e-mail messages.

Note:

If you would like to know how to use the macros described on this page (or on any other page on the WordTips sites), I've prepared a special page that includes helpful information. Click here to open that special page in a new browser tab.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (10516) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Counting Open Document Windows.

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. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Inserting the Current Time with Seconds

If you need to insert the current time, with seconds, then you'll need the macro discussed in this tip. It's easy to use ...

Discover More

Moving Files or Folders

A common operation within Windows is to move files and folders from one location to another. Here are the two major ways ...

Discover More

Separating Text by Color

Excel allows you to use multiple colors to format the text in a cell. If you want to later separate that text to ...

Discover More

Learning Made Easy! Quickly teach yourself how to format, publish, and share your content using Word 2013. With Step by Step, you set the pace, building and practicing the skills you need, just when you need them! Check out Microsoft Word 2013 Step by Step today!

More WordTips (ribbon)

Getting User Input in a Dialog Box

Want to grab some interactive input from a user in your macro? The best way to do that is with the InputBox function, ...

Discover More

Selecting to the Next Punctuation Mark

Writing macros often involves selecting different parts of your document so that some sort of processing can be ...

Discover More

Character Frequency Count

Word collects a wide range of statistics about your documents, but one of the things it doesn't collect is how many times ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is five less than 6?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the ribbon interface (Word 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the menu interface.

Videos
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.