Closing Documents and Exiting Word

If you want to close all the Word documents you have open and exit Word, choose File, Exit. As Word is closing documents, it will stop to prompt you to save any that have unsaved changes.

If you want to close just the document that you're working on, but leave other Word documents open, click the Close button in the upper-right corner of the window (the red X). If your document contains any unsaved changes, you will be prompted to save it (you'll learn about saving in Hour 3, "Managing Documents").

If your Word installation has been configured to display all open documents in one Word window (by choosing Tools, Options, clicking the View tab, and clearing the Windows in Taskbar check box), the Close button will behave just as the File, Exit command does; it will close all open documents and exit Word. If Word is configured this way and you want to close the current document but leave the remaining documents open, use one of the two methods described next .

Here are two other ways to close the current document but leave Word open:

• Choose File, Close .

• Click the Close Window button (the black X under the Close button in the upper-right corner of the Word window).

If you only have one Word document open, either of these methods closes the document but leaves the Word window open (see Figure 1.31).

Figure 1.31. Choose File, Close or click the Close Window button if you only have one Word window open and you want to close the document but leave Word open.