Peter,

Thank you for the response, we're on the right track but we have a long way to go.

First question is, OK, you say we should avoid calling the automation code in this case, but how do we detect that we are in this situation, that the formula bar is open? What automation call will tell me, without hanging itself?

The second problem is that this really doesn't satisfy the users. The users expect to be able to move on without explicitly closing the formula bar. For example, in the application, they can choose Save and the formula is closed automatically. So there must be a way, once we have detected this situation, to handle it. Perhaps by calling the win32 sendmessage api directly?

Thanks,
-Stewart