[Ucan]

Thanks for your response, to answer your questions, the thumbnail is square
as you say, but within that square space the image gets stretched
horizontally as if it was a landscape. The image is actually distorted at
that point. If I open the document and remove any inserted pictures and
resave, bingo, it goes back to a normal looking icon where the image is more
vertical to match the paper size. Just doesnt make sense.

The OS is Windows Vista Ultimate. Microsoft Word 2007.

To reiterate your symptom - the windows explorer thumbnails for Word
2007 .docx documents appear in portrait (NOT portrate) mode unless a
picture has been inserted, in which case it appears in landscape mode.

Now thumbnails are normally square, and have no vertical or horizontal
orientation. Are you saying that the icon inside the thumbnail now
looks like a landscape document? Or does the thumbnail display the
CONTENT of your document 'sideways'? Either way, it IS peculiar.
Different third-party addons and different operating systems display
different content in thumbnails. What OS ARE you using?