I use Excel only occasionally. None of my files show in the 'Open' window.
Under 'options' and 'advanced' there is an option for "show this number of
Recent documents...." The R is underlined.
There is no definition of 'Recent'.
I would like the maximum of older files to show, so that I could choose rapidly.
How do I achieve this?

Hi guybc,

Change the number in the 'show this number of Recent documents' spinner to 17 (the maximum)

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Thanks - but the problem is in the word 'Recent'. There is no definition for what this means. There a many files to be loaded, but most of them are six months old and don't qualify as recent.

Hi guybc,
Simply put, it's not a question of 'recent' means in isolation it's a 'most recent used' list, for which a definition of 'recent' on its own is meaningless. The list reports the 1-17 most recently opened files, in order from 'most recent' to 'least recent'. The list does not purport to show however many files you've opened in the last hour, for example, or that files in the list will have been opened within, say, the last week.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Thanks for your reply. I'm still puzzled that it does not pick up files from six months ago! It is set to 17.

Hi guybc,

If you increase the number at some point from, say, 5, to 17, it'll only start recording more than 5 files as you open additional files from then on - it can't report what it hasn't previously been tracking. Conversely, if you decrease the number, it can immediately cull any extra files from the list.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]