This is an oldie but a goodie
http://www.oehive.org/node/467 but not sure about how it does anything with winword.
I'm guessing you should be able to find some doc on the winword api, but here's some code that will open a file and then close it in winword.
DEF VAR hWord AS COM-HANDLE NO-UNDO.
DEF VAR hDoc AS COM-HANDLE NO-UNDO.
CREATE 'Word.Application' hWord.
hWord:Visible = TRUE.
hDoc = hWord
ocuments:OPEN("somefile.doc").
MESSAGE "wait" VIEW-AS ALERT-BOX.
hdoc:CLOSE(NO).
hword:QUIT().
RELEASE OBJECT hDoc.
RELEASE OBJECT hWord.
Regards
--LT