Stop Office for Mac from loading with earlier documents on top of the one I opened?

Solution 1:

What you want can be accomplished with Automator which comes with OS X.

1. Open Automator from the Applications folder

2. Choose New from the File menu or type ⌘-N and choose 'Application'

3. Search Actions for Launch and drag Launch Application to the workflow on the right

4. set the app to Word or whatever else you're having the problem with

5. search Actions for 'Pause' and drag pause to the workflow, set it to however long it takes word to open for you (e.g. 5 seconds)

6. search Actions for Open Finder Items and add that to the workflow.

7. Save it as an Application, drag it to your dock and drag docs on to the icon for it when you want them to open on top of the previous Word docs.

N.B. you can also set all documents to open using your freshly created app, so you can just open them as usual, but then a delay will permanently be added to their opening.

Solution 2:

1. Quitting the app with Option + Command + Q will ensure all windows are closed, and on the next open, only the intended file will open.
2. Go over to ~/Library/Saved Application State/ and change the permissions of your intended folder (com.microsoft.Word.savedState) to read-only.

These are essentially hacks - both tested on OS X 10.10.3 (Yosemite) and works.

Solution 3:

Resume states for individual programs are found in /Users/username/Library/Saved Application State/

Search for com.microsoft in the list of saved states. Youll be able to see word excel powerpoint ETC.

Get the application state to how you want it and quit the program. Then, do a get info(Command + i) on the folder containing the program you want to lock and under the "general" drop down menu in the info window, click "locked". This will save the "template" of the app.

My source: if you need further instruction.