From the help file under Customize how Word StartsStartup Switches

/n

Start a new instance of Word with no document open. Documents opened in each
instance of Word will not appear as choices in the Window menu of other
instances.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

"Stan Brown" wrote in message
...
Word 2003, Win XP Pro SP2

Seems to me with Word 97 there was some option, when opening Word
directly, to have it _not_ start with a blank document. Then when I
did FileNew and selected a template I'd have just one Word doc
open, he new one I was creating.

But I can't find that option in Word 2003. And since I have "Show
windows in Taskbar" set I have a taskbar spot for the unneeded empty
document and a second one for the document I'm creating. (I want to
keep "Show windows in Taskbar" for the times when I'm actually
working on more than one document at a time.)

I see the /n switch in Help for the command line, but is there any
option setting?

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
"If there's one thing I know, it's men. I ought to: it's
been my life work." -- Marie Dressler, in /Dinner at Eight/