Thanks Cetin - I can do getobject(...) (and I'm definitely sticking with wordBasic) but I need the version before getobject because:-

In w97, getobject("", "word.basic") launches a full version of Word, hidden.

In w95, getObject("", "word.basic") launches a version of Word, visible in foreground, without any toolbars. Attempting to shellExecute() will correctly launch Word with all the user's settings intact, but will return control to VFP before the word.basic object is fully instantiated, so getobject launches another copy of Word. This can be bypassed by shellexecute([name of document])...but doing this with *W97* returns control too early (again) and getObject() launches another copy of W97 with a copy of the file - the object will not be released until BOTH copies of Word are closed.

Word 6 behaves a little like 95 but can be shellExecute()-d and will correctly instatiate word.basic before returning...except when it doesn't.

In other words, I have solutions for all the different variants as long as I know which variant I'm dealing with before I try to do anything.

Not nearly as much fun as having appInfo() returning the language version of Word...except that in other languages it's not called appInfo and in order to find out what language it is (so that you know the name of the appInfo function) you have to call appInfo...hmmm (solved this one, though).

Perhaps it should be called "black 'OLE" as it's certainly eating up my time.


RJL, Edinburgh, about to pass over the event horizon.

P.S. Can't wait for Word 2000