>I want to use an existing Word object if already open, if not, open one. How to determine if an instance is already open?
>
>if ???????????
> oMW=createobject("word.application")
>else
> oMW=getobject(,"word.application")
>endif

You might want to look at my "Is a Windows Application Running?". It checks for the existence of a window based on the known portion of the title bar. Note, however, that Word 2000 and above, spawn a new window for each document regardless if one already exists. If that's the target version, then you can by-pass GETOBJECT() altogether.