Multiple Taskbar Icons for Documents

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated October 16, 2023)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021

David notes that in his previous versions of Word each open document would show at the bottom of the screen, in the Windows Taskbar, and he could click on it to open it. Now, with Word 2016, all the Word documents appear in a single icon on his Taskbar. This is incredibly inconvenient for him and wastes his time in switching between documents. David wonders how he can get the documents to show as individual items on the Taskbar again.

This is a function of Windows, not Word. (Because of this, I suspect that David updated his version of Windows when he updated to Word 2016.) In Windows 10, you need to perform these steps; if you are using an older version of Windows, the steps are similar.

Right-click an empty space on the Taskbar. (Make sure it is an empty space, and not an icon that may appear on your Taskbar.) Windows displays a Context menu.
Choose the Taskbar Settings option. Windows displays the Taskbar portion of the Settings window. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Taskbar options of the Settings dialog box.

Scroll down a bit in the window until you see the Combine Taskbar Buttons control.
Using the control, choose the Never option.
Close the Settings window.

You should now see individual icons for your documents on the Taskbar.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (13584) 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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