View option - showing all windows in task bar

[Fishingnut]

One change that has been made with the new 2007 version is that in SDI mode
the close window icon is no longer available. In Word2003 the close window
icon appeared in both modes.

This adds confusion because by past experience and habit I expect that
clicking on the red close icon in the upper right corner will shut down the
application. In 2007 this button serves two different purposes depending on
how many active windows there are. If there's only one window, it shuts down
the application but if there are more than one open window it merely closes
the window.

So now I'm sure you'd suggest using MDI mode. This seems logical, but in
MDI mode it's not very convenient to switch from one window to another
because you no longer have the other windows accessible from the task bar.
Instead you must either open the View menu in the ribbon and select switch
windows to choose or add the switch windows icon to the quick access toolbar
and make your choice from there. This does a couple things. First, it adds
more keystrokes to the process of switching from one window to another.
Second, I no longer can use Alt+Tab to switch windows so it is much less
convenient now than it was in previous versions.

To add confusion Excel still makes the close window icon available in both
modes. So I can't seem to get comfortable with Word because I use Excel a
lot and the two packages work differently in this regard.

Thanks,

Bob

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[Stefan Blom]

What you can do is avoid the close button and instead use Ctrl+F4 to close
documents; that way, Word will remain running even if you are closing the
last document in a session.

 

[Fishingnut]

In most application software there are numerous ways to accomplish the same
task and Microsoft Word is no different, this is true. I guess my point was
why change a good thing? I suppose change is inevitable but then at the very
least, if this feature is changing, would it not be better and less confusing
to the end user to retain some consistency between applications? For
example, as I already referred to Excel2007, both packages no longer use the
same feature in the same way. One of the things I enjoy about using
Microsoft Office is that it is a package and as such, common tasks remain
very similar between the different Office applications. Once I know how to
use common features in Word, I don't have to relearn them for every other
application in the package. In fact, hasn't that been a Windows standard for
third-party applications?

That is why I would suggest putting the close window icon back on the window
in both SDI and MDI modes. It's convenient, it's familiar, and it's a good
thing.

Thanks,

Bob