>Actually, the point is that the version with merged data should NOT be saved at all. It may be printed to a specific printer under application control and is then supposed to be destroyed--as in closed without saving the changes.

Ah, another level of complexity. Hmmm, gonna have to think about that. I thought maybe you were concerned about them overwriting your template. I just store the doc in a memo field for those situations, but this is a different animal. What about just using a rich text control inside a VFP form,then moving that into the template, printing in the background and keeping the user from even seeing it?