Charles,

many thanks for answering so extensively.... I tested the situations you
described and indeed Normal.dot is affected by all the hiding stuff :-((

a fact I haven't thought of yet .... big problem now...
I am not familiar with word coding or behaviour ... my thoughts were: when I
do a macro to hide/ disable all but my personal toolbar it would only affect
documents coming from that particular template ..... Invoice1.dot

here's my code
***
Sub HideAllToolbars()

Dim i As Integer
i = 1

   Application.WindowState = wdWindowStateNormal

   If ActiveDocument.AttachedTemplate = "Invoice1.dot" Then

       Do

           If ActiveDocument.CommandBars(i).Name <> "Invoice" Then
               ActiveDocument.CommandBars(i).Enabled = True
           Else
               ActiveDocument.CommandBars(i).Enabled = False
           End If

           i = i + 1
       Loop While i < (ActiveDocument.CommandBars.Count)

       CommandBars("Invoice").Enabled = True
       CommandBars.AdaptiveMenus = False

 End If
End Sub
***
Sub AutoExec()
   HideAllToolbars
End Sub
***

What I am trying to accomplish:
my 'invoicing programme' in access 2000 is transferring data to word.
Before, the company was writing their invoicing stuff still on a typing
machine.  I would like to make sure, that if they want to use a computer for
the invoicing, they should do it through my programme and ultimately renew
the license after a year rather than making a copy of my template by typing
invoices in word itself!!

therefore I do not work on a 'visible' *.dot .... and via access vba a copy
is made and named appropriately and destoys the copy afterwards.

You are definitrely right ..... I would be very angry if any programme would
affect my other work with word negatively in any way!!! I would sue them as
well!!

Maybe you have an idea of how I can code what I intend to do ....
if at all...

Gina