>even without understanding, you answered it well! i just want to be able to merge word documents with the database, and with foxpro i had to do a workaround. it sounds as if sql server is better integrated with word. thanks.
>
>btw, the beta2 of sql express 2005 says it will stop working in a little over 500 days. is this something that i need to be concerned with? i certainly don't want to invest a great deal of time to have the program cease working on me.
>
>thanks.
>
>paul

SQL server is very well integrated with Word & Excell. I have a client which main application is VB.Net/SQLServer but for internal purposes they use VBA/Word to query SQlServer and to get some reports

Realease of SQL 2005(incle express edition) will be during summer, which is less than 500days :-)