>Rick,
>
>Thanks for your input. I tried your suggestion (putting a thisform.oWord.Activate after the thisform.oWord.visible = .T. line) but am getting the exact same behaviour.
>
>Stan

Are you sure Word is not starting at all? Check the task manager right after doing the createobject command. If Word is running it will appear as "winword" when visible = .F. and as "Microsoft Word" after you set visible = .T. (I no longer have Word 97 on any of my machines so this is based on Office 2000.) Another thing to try is to do the same commands from the VFP 7 command window instead of from your form and see what happens.