Have used Word in similar fashion.
My experience tells me that DO quit/destroy Word instance every time!
Also make sure your temp directory is not filled with big word temp files once in a while (every week or two?).

Other than that, the automation worked quite well.

-Jun

>Hi all,
>
>A client of mine is having me develop a Word automation app to create booklets in Word by pushing across tables etc using Word automation. The overall process of firing up Word and creating the tables and all that is going swimmingly and creating the docs on their PC's if fine (albeit somewhat slow).
>
>Once this app gets into full production, they would rather have this app sit on a server and have a VFP app scan a table looking for data to process into a booklet. That is, it will check a table and if a new record is added, it would fire up this Word automation app, fire up Word, create the booklet and then drop it back in the user's directory (on the server).
>
>I have done something similar with long reports so that user's submit a request for a report and then check back later in their directory - but that all within the VFP report writer. In this case, I am a bit concerned that with Word being somewhat "flakey", creating 100 - 200 instances of Word a day and then destroying them, or just creating that many docs in a Word instance is going to cause Word to fail (memory leak etc).
>
>Anyone done this - offloading Word automation to another server and then crank through lots of docs? Also, your opinion of what might be best:
>
>1) use the VFP app to create a Word instance, process the document and then close (quit) the Word instance each time (to clear memory used by Word - but slower to load and perhaps loading/unloading Word 100 times a day will also have probs)
>
>2) use VFP to create a Word instance but then "recycle" the instance each time so that the docs are closed each run but Word stays open.
>
>Opinions?
>
>Albert