I've been following this discussion with some interest as I have never been able to get ExternalEditor to work for me. Now, that said, I have it confiured enough that it will present me with an editor and a file (WinWord) by clicking on the pencil. But I am confused on two points: 1.) When Word opens a document it presents me with text without any formatting. Also gives me metadata, URL, cookie info etc. Is this how it is supposed to work?
No... sounds like there may be a mismatch between the version of external editor on your server and the version on your client. At least that's all I can think of.
2.) When I save the work, I don't know where is goes or how to get it back to my plone site.
It's supposed to save on top of whatever document you clicked on.