Closing All Open Workbooks

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated July 1, 2023)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


You already know that you can close an open workbook using any number of methods. What if you have a bunch of open workbooks and you want to close them all, however? You can do this in one swift action by holding down the Shift key as you display the File menu. Notice that when you do, there is a Close All option on the menu. Choose this, and all your workbooks are closed. You will, of course, be prompted to save changes on each open workbook, if necessary.

Note that this only works if you hold down the Shift key when displaying the File menu. If you don't, then Close All does not appear.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (3065) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

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. ...

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