Open Document and application in background

[agdude]

I would like to be able to open a document without making the related application active. For example: When I open a large excel file, it may take some time to load. During this time I will start working in another application, but as soon as excel finishes opening it becomes active. I then end up typing into excel what I meant to enter into the other application.

I know an application can be opened without activating using "open -g" in terminal, but this doesn't work for opening a specific document.

Thanks in advance for the help.

[hayne]

I know an application can be opened without activating using "open -g" in terminal, but this doesn't work for opening a specific document.

In what way doesn't 'open' work for opening a specific document?
If I do:
open -g /path/to/mydoc.txt
then TextWrangler opens but Terminal remains the foreground app.

[regulus6633]

You mentioned Excel in particular. I think your issue is with Excel. It happens to me too. Excel forces itself to the front even when you don't want it to. That's a problem with how Microsoft coded the application because it shouldn't act that way. So basically I don't think there's anything you can do about it.