Mark,
I can't thank you enough. I was hoping it was that easy.
John.


>>I have finally got Word to run my mail merge perfectly in the backround out of VFP. Is there a way to tell when Word is finished printing? I am using a timeout loop now but I don't really trust it.
>>
>>Many thanks in advance.
>
>There's a property of the word object that you can test.
>
>Very simply
>
>DO WHILE loWord.BackgroundPrintingStatus <> 0
> ? "Waiting"
>ENDDO