Excel should not be an MDI style application.

[Guest]

Excel seems to be running in an MDI (Multiple Document Interface) style mode.
All other office products are SDI (Single Document Interface) or at least
work that way. The problem is that when you close Excel, with the X in the
corner, you wind up closing all of the Excel documents, even though it asks
you if you want to save them, the most common thing to do is say no when you
have just looked at a spreadsheet quickly, since at times Office applications
ask even when no apparent changes were made.

It is true that we should be more careful and fully read the pop up boxes
that appear, but after at least a year of this affecting me, I still wind up
not saving a document and wind up losing a lot of work because I close a
spreadsheet the same way I would a word document, only the spreadsheet closes
all spreadsheets and work only closes the document that is currently
displayed.

It is very frustrating and has cost me a lot of time and money.

 

[Guest]

I'm using Office 2003, and it has two sets of Window Buttons--exactly the
same as Word. If I hit the bottom X, it only closes the active document.

Perhaps I don't have this problem because I use Ctrl+w when I want to close
only the active workbook. Or, File | Close.

tj

 

[Fiona O'Grady]

I find that if you go to Tools, Options and select "Show: Windows in
taskbar" that I don't have that problem. Occasionally it seems to reset
itself, but once you've done it once it will work most of the time.

Fiona

 

[Earl Kiosterud]

Robert,

There should be a smaller x (document) right under the larger one
(application), if the document window is maximized. Clicking that, or using
Ctrl-F4 will close only that window, leaving Excel, and any other workbooks,
open. Are you clicking the large X (application, not document) in the far
corner? That will close Excel (But in Word, will close only that document,
unless it's the only document open).

 

[Dave Peterson]

Just to add to Fiona's response.

If you're using xl2k or higher, you can toggle "windows in taskbar".
(Tools|Options|view tab)

But if you have multiple workbooks open, you can still, er, get yourself in
trouble by clicking on the X to terminate the application. (Excel works
differently than Word).