>>>>** these four lines work fine
>>>>ox=createobject('word.document')
>>>>ox.application.documents.open(thisfile) && thisfile=desired file surrounded by quotes
>>>>ox.application.visible=.t.
>>>>ox.application.activedocument.printpreview
>>>>
>>>>** this one doesn't, although the help states that this is the correct syntax
>>>>ox.application.activedocument.printout
>
>>>When I get the printing piece to work, I'll put that it also.
>
>Hello Rick
>
>concerning work printout method, I have no definitive answer.
>But I have spent long hours with EXCEL and ... in the end all my OLE
>automation commands worked as documented.
>
>In most cases Excel requires ALL PARAMETERS to be passed to the ole engine.
>Possibly the same applies to Winword.
>
>if "ox.application.activedocument.printout" does not work, you should
>investigate sending all appropriate parameters to the Winword engine which requires (under VBA) :
>
>Application.PrintOut FileName:="", Range:=wdPrintAllDocument, Item:= _
> wdPrintDocumentContent, Copies:=1, Pages:="",
> PageType:=wdPrintAllPages, _
> Collate:=True, Background:=True, PrintToFile:=False
>
>That should translate into something looking roughly like:
>
>ox.activedocument.PrintOut("",wdPrintAllDocument,wdPrintDocumentContent,
>0,"",wdPrintAllPages,.T.,.T.,.F.)
>
>where wdPrintAllDocument,wdPrintDocumentContent,wdPrintAllPages are VBA
>constants (should be in some VBA Winword documentation.
>
>My short test in Paris has been successfull. I have no access to VBA Winword
>documentation here, i do know neither exact type nor value (numeric) of
>those constants.
>
>Keep us informed
>

By the way, I tested the same thing using OLE to control Excel 97, and the PrintOut method works without any parameters in Excel.
>François