>It's hard to prevent them from seeing it when they have to edit it :-) The application has dozens of instances of the entire process completely under VFP control. These all work very well. The problem arises when the user needs to modify the text. Once I give them access to Word, I feel like the application has lost control--but is still responsible for insuring that the process completes just as it would if they didn't have access.

I meant hide word document by letting them have access to a VFP form which uses a MS Office Word activex. This keeps the user from having access to the save and save as options, but gives you the formatting of Word. Once they have finished editing, you can take that text and populate your Word template (without setting the visible property to .t.) and save.