Hi Guessed,

Thanks very much for your reply. That was an interesting exercise in the back office of Word. I had already taken the advice in another thread to just repair Word and that handled the problem COM-PLEEETLY! ahh, Thank God! That was so frustrating waiting for it to save, sitting on my hands doing nothing for 10,20,30 seconds.

anyway, i did try your solution for the helluv it and it didn't make any difference either way, so i've left allow background saves checked.

i did a little research about background saves on the web and it didn't reveal the negatives. are there any negatives about allowing them?

thanks!
Pete