Thanks for all of your responses. Not sure I can duplicate the settings for finereader on my system, because apparently there is a problem with using gray scale with Kz, windows 98 SE and the epson 1660. Also I'm not sure what brightness finereader uses because I just have it set so that Finereader automaticly adjusts the brightness. What it comes down to though is that by playing with the settings we can get near perfect scans whether using Finereader itself or Kurzweil, and we sure can't ask for any more than that. Editing is absolutely wonderful with Kurzweil. Much easier than Word, that's for sure. And I love that Rank spelling. Thanks again. Pam