>Word keeps flashing in the background in spite the oword.visible = .f.
>Is there anything I can do abou that?

Hmm. I'm not sure why that is happening. I just tried a quick Doc open/close loop here for 5 documents, and did not notice any flashing. Maybe it's dependent on how you opened Word (GETOBJECT vs. CREATEOBJECT) and whether Word was already open in another process.

lcDir = "\\myMachine\docs\"
ww = createobject('Word.Application')
lnFiles = ADIR(laFiles, lcDir + "*.doc")
FOR ii = 1 TO MIN(5, lnFiles)
  ww.visible = .f.
  ? laFiles[m.ii, 1]
  doc = ww.Documents.Open(lcDir + laFiles[m.ii, 1])
  doc.Close
ENDFOR