I tried

if vartype(loWord.visible) = 'U'
   loWord = createobject("Word.Application")
endif

I get an error message that "RPC server is unavailable". How do I check if the server is available?

>How do I know if user close the documentation (doc) file so that I can reopen it?
>>
>>If you're likely to need Word more than once in the app's session, you should store the object reference to Word somewhere that it won't be lost when you leave the current form/PRG/whatever. That way, you can keep using the same Word instance. An app-level property will work for that.
>>
>>Tamar