>Two oops,
>1. Sorry this is in foxpro, thought I was in office forum.
>2. Here is my excel shut down code. Again I don't think this is the problem area because if word docs are not mail merge there is no problem.

My experience is that Word likes to hold onto things longer than is necessary. I wouldn't be surprised if it's holding a reference to the Excel document until you close Word, thus preventing Excel from totally shutting down.

Tamar