Instant Document Access in Office 2007

Anyone who opens lots of documents quickly grows frustrated with their commonly used files scrolling off the bottom of the Recent Documents list in Word and Excel. In Office 2007, this list is visible when clicking the orb in the upper left corner of the program, and by default shows the last 17 documents opened.

The fix is to "pin" those documents so they will always show up in the list! To the right of each filename is a gray pushpin image. Click a pushpin and it will turn green and pin the document to that list, so it will never scroll off the bottom. The document will still move up and down in the list, however, as it and other files are opened.

To adjust the number of documents in the Recent Documents list:

  • click the orb to display the menu
  • click the Word Options button at the bottom of the menu
  • click Advanced
  • scroll down to the Display section
  • adjust the Show this number of Recent Documents option
  • press OK to save changes

July 2009

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