"...without actually opening Word" ?
You have some Work cut out for yourself if you want to give the user the ability to create and edit a Word doc, and save it in Word format, with who knows what type of functionality the interface should offer....
And you can only do this effectively with the Word Object Library. Which means the Client has to has a licensed version of MS Word on their PC (licensed to the PC/User).
So if Word has to be on the client anyways, then use it.
Using a OLE container in your VB Project, you can let the user do this (open/edit/create/save a Word Doc) right with-in your application. It will make your application look and feel just as if it has its own Word processor - but it is really the Word inteface. You can also offer the choice to actually open the document with Word when using the container.
Place the container on a form, and select "create new" and then select MS Word Document. You will need to create a menu item in order to close the container via menu, but the rest is already there for you.
And then you can use the Word Object library to create a Doc, or what ever, and link it to the OLE container at run time.
Play with it, and if this is what you are looking for, then go to MSDN and search for the help files on using the control.