Closing Multiple Files

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated February 14, 2026)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


While you are working on multiple workbooks, you may also be wondering how you can quickly close all of them, without exiting Excel. The easy way to do this is to hold down the Shift key as you click on the File menu. When you do this, the Close command (which closes a single workbook) instead becomes Close All (which closes all your open workbooks).

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (3245) 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. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Capitals After Colons

Do you want Word to always capitalize the first letter appearing after a colon? The program won't do it by default, but ...

Discover More

Viewing More than Two Places in a Worksheet

If your worksheet gets big enough, it is easy to spend a lot of time navigating back and forth between different areas. ...

Discover More

Answering Questions in Order

It is not unusual to use Excel to gather the answers to users' questions. If you want your users to answer your questions ...

Discover More

Create Custom Apps with VBA! Discover how to extend the capabilities of Office 365 applications with VBA programming. Written in clear terms and understandable language, the book includes systematic tutorials and contains both intermediate and advanced content for experienced VB developers. Designed to be comprehensive, the book addresses not just one Office application, but the entire Office suite. Check out Mastering VBA for Microsoft Office 365 today!

More ExcelTips (menu)

Determining the Length of a Text File

When processing plain text files in a macro, it is often helpful to know how much data the file contains. The normal way ...

Discover More

Stopping Date Parsing when Opening a CSV File

Excel tries to make sense out of any data that you import from a non-Excel file. Sometimes this can have unwanted ...

Discover More

Saving Information in a Text File

The VBA programming language provide with Excel allows you to create and modify text files quite easily. Here's how to ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, 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 one less than 1?

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 Excel that uses the menu interface (Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel 2002, or Excel 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, 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.