stop office opening previous file

I could not agree more.

Unfortunately this happens quite frequently. People offer solutions that are not solutions at all, and at times what is offered as a solution does not have anything to do with the problem.😟😢

And there is also a lot of repetition on many of these topics. Really people do not need to reiterate what has already been stated just to show off that you too have a suggestion to make...😕

With Lion's default settings, you have to explicitly close the document before you close the application. If you do this, the next time the application starts, it will go to a new document.

To change this back to the old way, simply go to System Preferences -> General and untick "Restore windows when quitting and reopening apps"

But is there a way to stop only Microsoft Word (or, for that matter, any other individual program) from reopneing the last document?

Yes, like what kurt said... this is annoying. Firefox, for example, will save your last windowed views, if you want - it shouldn't be system wide. For example, working on a document and need to run out, just shut down the machine, then when I restart it opens ALL the previous windows, and sometimes they're on other servers in the house so that takes FOREVER because the server has to mount etc., then they all open, then I get to make a new document. Not cool, or useful.

I just found this in the macrumors forums:

Alternatively, for those who want some resume functionality and don't want to globally disable it, you can hold Shift when you launch an application to bypass resume and start that app fresh.

'Like'

credit to jman240 there.

If you want to permanently disable resume for one app, you can always try this:

http://osxdaily.com/2011/08/01/turn-off-resume-per-app-in-mac-os-x-lion/

Cheers,

Rodney

Hold down the Option key when quitting the app in question (assuming you are quitting by choosing Quit from the application's menu rather than the Dock menu). By holding down Option, "Quit" should change to "Quit and Discard Windows".

I just finished writing a GUI app to allow editing per-application settings for the window restoration feature:

http://www.markdouma.com/developer/WindowRestorationFinagler.zip

Hope this helps....

Works well. Thanks!!!

This was driving me crazy.

Darg! This didn't work.

I don't know what happened, but it's like something went wrong with my machnine a couple weeks ago and now EVERY application (Office Aps, Firefox, Preview, etc) continually opens old files no matter what I do. I've turned this functinality off at the system level. I've tried the program from above...nothing works.

At about the same time, I suddenly needed to type in my password to do just about ANYTHING. I don't recall doing any major system upgrades, though I wouldn't be surprised if there was a system update or something.

Hold down the Option key when quitting the app in question (assuming you are quitting by choosing Quit from the application's menu rather than the Dock menu). By holding down Option, "Quit" should change to "Quit and Discard Windows"

You know I've read about this "Quit and Discard Windows" option...It doesn't exist. I get "Quit and Close all Windows" or, if I've turned off the auto-restore, "Quit and Keep All Windows."

I found the feature annoying at first, but now simply close documents before quitting an application. Takes getting used to, but there are benefits: restart the machine and everything is as you left it. Remarkably cool.

Anyway, the excellent freeware TinkerTool allows you to modify this behavior on a per-app basis. It's in the Resume section. Lists each app, pick and choose.

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/5721/tinkertool

Yeah, that'd be great if it that solved the problem. If it did, I probably wouldn't be here looking for help.

To your point, I typically close windows and then quit. My problem here is that no matter what I do, the files keep coming back. Some of them are "recovered" from a crash weeks ago. So, it doesn't matter whether or not I close the windows before I quit or not. They'll show up again.

Thanks for the suggestion!

This seems to have solved the problem for me:

System Preferences > General > un-check "Restore windows when quitting & re-opening apps"

http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/17168/os-x-lion-disable-apps-opening-with-last-us ed-file-or-web-page/

Preview is doing this to me

- i unchecked 'Restore windows when quitting and re-opening apps'

that didnt make the preview files all close.

- when i hold down option and quit preview, it says 'Quit and Keep Windows'

so i checked the Restore windows when quitting and re-opening apps box again, went to preview and I was then able to Quit and close all windows. Did so, but they are all still there - open.

I even Quit and closed all windows, unchecked the 'Restore windows when quitting and re-opening apps box again before opening Preview - but yep, all those jpgs and pdfs were still there

😟 can anyone help me?