>I used to have excel 2000 and it crashed a lot, upgraded to xp with all service packs and it got a bit better (less crashing on printout()) but still it's poor. I'll try creating a simple looping program that does all that is here - perhaps with a print to file switch to save costs a bit :)
>
>if it crashes for me I'll upload it to some space and post a link, perhaps someone will find a reason.
>
>thanks for all the ideas, I have tried most but it's always good to go over things again.

Ken,

I'd try putting that second line inside an

IF VARTYPE(oExcel) = 'O'
  ...
ELSE
   RETURN .F.
ENDIF

construct. I know you said that the Task Manager shows Excel is open but that doesn't necessarily mean that VFP has an object reference to it.

HTH,