Jim
Several Dell notebooks have a notorious bug in their fan handling. If yours is one of the affected Dells, I suspect that Word must be doing some invisible processing when it is visible, causing the processor to heat up and the fan to start.
Check out the i8kfan product (it was at
http://www.diefer.de/i8kfan/index.html but that url seems to fail. Try looking up i8kfan on Google) and if your machine is one of the affected ones, install i8kfan. Prepare to be amazed- Dell's fan control leaves your processor and hard drive far, far hotter than recommended by the manufacturers; my notebook sounds like a jumbo jet when I do intensive processing and both fans go to high speed. Dell's own fan control never exceeded slow speed.
Regards
JR
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
