opening excel

When I open Excel, any file I have worked on recently,
whether word processing, Acrobat, jpg, whatever, opens as a
spreadsheet full of something similar to ASCII characters.
I have to close all of them (sometimes as many as 7 or 8
sheets) to get a blank page. I can't find a setting to
change that would make that stop. Any suggestions?

Make sure that there is nothing entered under Alternate Startup File
Location (in Excel 2002/2003 this is called "At Startup, Open All Files In")
under Tools, Options, General.

If there is no entry there check that no unwanted files are being saved in
any of your XLSTART folders. Excel automatically opens all files in either
location when it starts up.

--
Jim Rech
Excel MVP
"Anne" wrote in message
...
| When I open Excel, any file I have worked on recently,
| whether word processing, Acrobat, jpg, whatever, opens as a
| spreadsheet full of something similar to ASCII characters.
| I have to close all of them (sometimes as many as 7 or 8
| sheets) to get a blank page. I can't find a setting to
| change that would make that stop. Any suggestions?