Hi Macropod...there's nothing fancy running with Office...its only a new Toshiba..laptop..no macros installed by me..but your idea about repairing it made me think some more.
The 2010 Office software disc came with a second hand netbook , and a statement that the software had been loaded only once ...onto the netbook.

Is it conceiveable that if it has been loaded more than 3 times by the original user and now as a second user, I'm being punished by MS with the strange behaviour??
I had presumed that even tho I'm user number 2, I could do a download to the toshiba tecra using the remaining legit 1 or 2 copies off the disc.