Well then and I repeat, I guess you have to disconnect the external hard drive or USB after each use, before adding anything new to the Word file, close the Word file, make sure the addition has been accepted, close the file, then connect your external source and add it to the external source. Is that how it works so as not to corrupt the external source? The new stuff gets added to the external source only after you see that its been accepted on the Word file correctly and not corrupted otherwise it gets corrupted on the external source as well, correct? BTW my file got corrupted with no external backup connected just because I opened the file too quickly...