Discussion on:

Put Word's recent documents list to work for you

Susan, thank you for spotlighting another arcane Word feature that could have saved me a lot of time and gray hair over the years. I'm putting my "new" tools to work immediately. Thank you for a hugely helpful column!

I like pinning in the taskbar for files I'm working on at the moment -- you can pin them, have quick access, and then unpin them when you're done -- it's a great feature. Thanks for mentioning it!

I have Word pinned to the Taskbar. Right mouse shows recent files. You can also pin those you use often to that list, such as Templates. I find this to be faster although the number of files is limited to 10.

If I need to go back a-ways, I use your process of going through Word Options/advanced.

In Office 2007 the maximum Recent Files is 50, but it will only show the maximum your screen is capable of holding (in my case, 33 files) there is no scroll option to utilize the maximum number of files, which is a shame.

Thanks for mentioning this feature -- it's especially great for temporary files!

I suggest that you prefix the Open method with

If RecentFiles.Count >= 1 Then

Also useful is the tickbox at the foot of the File screen "Quickly access this number of recent documents". Tick the box and enter the number of documents you want to see - these will now appear on the File navigation pane above Info.

In Windows 7, I also use the Start Menu to accomplish this.

Right-click in Start Menu, select Properties and Start Menu tab. Click Customize and set the Jump list to, say, 30 for the mumber of recent files. However, for some reason, not ALL recent files make it to the list!