Hi Peter-

Thanks very much for this reply. It's full of good information. Of
all the above items you list, I'm wondering if a query that is based on
a value in an intermediate screen could be the culprit. This is not a
parameter query. I don't use those. But I do have an intermediate
form in which the user can place a date and the query reads that date
to filter the records. So the query is open at the time that Word is
running. That's probably it. I think I'll redesign it to a Make Table
query so that I can close Access altogether and Word can simply read
from a table and the query issues will not arise at all. The table can
be temporary and emptied between each usage.

I'll be in her office again next week and check out the Options
settings, too.

Thanks again!

Betsy