Kevin,

>How would I find out the various properties and methods for applications such as IE5/Word/Excel, so that I can automate?

Look in your MSDN Library (you do have it installed don't you?). It's free for all VFP and VStudio registered users.

Look in the Platform SDK, Web Services, Web Workshop for detailed documentation of IE, DOM, HTML, DHTML, CSS, Web Browser Control, etc.

Look in Office Developer Documentation section for the others.