Hmmm. I just came across another cell with padding that only had 234 characters and kept the padding while the character count was between 231and 250 characters so there is obviously something else at play. I thought it may have been total character pixel width etc but changing the font from Arial to Courier didn't make a difference. Anyway, if someone else out there knows ... I think I've wasted enough time on this one. :) Cheers, Bruce