Thanks, Chip, that verifies our experiences here. My student had 2003 for a long time when she suddenly started seeing this behavior... so I had wondered about an update or patch, but did not know anything for certain. It makes you feel kind of crazy, doesn't it... especially when it won't re-open from a -hot-key but will if you slam it with the Enter key. Maybe we should try to tell Microsoft- any idea of how to do so or whether it would be too difficult to get to the right person anyway? Cher cut