Special Edition Using Microsoft® Office XP

Working with Multiple Files

Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and FrontPage enable you to open more than one file at a time. Access does not, and you can't open multiple files directly by using the New File task pane. To open multiple files using the common dialog boxes, follow these steps:

1. In the New File task pane, click More Documents. Equivalently, you can press Ctrl+O or choose File, Open to display the Open dialog box.

2. Hold down the Ctrl key and click to select multiple filenames.

3. Click the Open button or press Enter to open all selected files.

To open multiple files from an Explorer window, hold down the Ctrl key and click each icon; then right-click and choose Open.

You can also open any file by dragging its icon from an Explorer window into an ...