Go into the task manager. There are probably many instances of Excel still
running. You code is probably not releasing Excel because it has created
ghost references which can't be released or you just plain old haven't put
in the code to release the references. (setting variables to nothing in
reverse order to the way they were created and quiting the Excel
application.)

This can be subtle.

xlApp.ActiveSheet.Range("A1").Sort Key1:=Range("A1")

would create a ghost reference because the Range("A1") is not qualified all
the way back to a releasable reference

xlApp.Activesheet.Range("A1").Sort Key1:=xlApp.Activesheet.Range("A1")

would be the fix.

--
Regards,
Tom Ogilvy

"HeatherO" wrote in message
...
I have used late binding to access excel workbooks from my word macro.
The
problem I appear to be having is that when I run the macro the first time
it
runs smoothly. However if I run it again some of my files (ones for the
mail
merge) are locked and won't open when I am trying to open them in the
macro.
I do have it in my code to close those workbooks and quit the application.
Is there any way to test for the workbook.open command failing when it
doesn't open a workbook for this reason?
Is there a way of opening a workbook so that you would not get the
locked
for editing by another user and notification of when it's available
message?
Also when the macro bombs all the files and application are left open
causing errors when I am trying to debug it again, is there any quick fix
to
clean up the files and close the application if the macro bombs before it
has
a chance to do those things?
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks,
Heather