A record is a row. The first record is the row of data that is closest to the top of the sheet.



"once i try to open the excel, word forces itself to close"
Why are you opening Excel after Word is open?

ok, each word document that i'm creating is a row (A3:FW55).
one of the cells that's giving me trouble is BE12. it's got like 350 characters and only 255 show up. (there are other cells that have 1000 characters and show up fine).
so, based on what you said, i put in text in BE1 with 500 or so characters. BE12 is still showing up truncated (i reconnected the excel so i know it was updated). is this what you meant i should do?

regarding your question....i'm not opening excel again. i meant that when i click to "link" the excel document to my word, it asks me to open the excel with DDE which i select, and then word says something like: word encountered an error and has to close. and then it forces it to close!