Saving and Closing All Open Documents

In earlier versions of Word (before Word 2007) you could hold down the Shift key as you click the File menu, and Word would helpfully change the Save command to Save All and the Close command to Close All. Not so in Word 2007 and later versions; there is no longer a File menu on which to click at all.

This change left many people in a quandary—if you are working with a lot of documents at one time, how do you go about closing or saving all your documents? You could, if desired, simply exit Word. In the process, any open documents that are unchanged are closed and you are prompted about saving any that have changes. (The same goes if you select all the documents on the Windows Taskbar, right-click, and choose the command to close the tasks.)

Fortunately, there is a better and easier way. The commands to save all your documents or close them all are still in Word; they are simply buried, and you need to add them to the Quick Access Toolbar. Follow these steps:

1. Display the Word Options dialog box. (In Word 2007 click the Office button and then click Word Options. In Word 2010 and later versions display the File tab of the ribbon and then click Options.)
2. At the left side of the dialog box, click Customize (Word 2007) or Quick Access Toolbar (Word 2010 and later versions). (See Figure 1.)



Figure 1. The Quick Access Toolbar area of the Word Options dialog box.

3. Using the Choose Commands From drop-down list, choose All Commands.
4. In the list of commands at the left side of the dialog box, locate and select the Close All command.
5. Click the Add button. The command is copied to the list at the right side of the dialog box.
6. In the list of commands at the left side of the dialog box, locate and select the Save All command.
7. Click the Add button. The command is copied to the list at the right side of the dialog box.
8. Click OK.

The two commands—Close All and Save All—should now appear in the Quick Access Toolbar at the upper-left corner of the program window.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (11095) 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: Saving and Closing All Open Documents.