That is exactly what I tried to do originally, but it would not save the open item. I would see the changes occur in the open item, but the save would not make them permanent in the underlying message. When (in testing) I let the macro run and then afterword I manaully close the open item I am prompted with the "do you want to save the changes" prompt. I don't want the User to get that prompt. Let me show you the hokey way I got around this, Not what I consider good programming. After the insert before statement I added: SaveRTFBody = objItem.Body 'Save the message that Word has modified objItem.Save 'Marks message saved but the Word changes are not saved objItem.Body = SaveRTFBody 'Stuff the raw saved data into message body objItem.Save ' This really saves the message changes to the underlying message this time outside of Word of course. Thank you for your time. On Wed, 3 Mar 2010 11:02:37 -0500, "Ken Slovak - [MVP - Outlook]" <kenslovak@mvps.org> wrote: