Please clarify what this means. I have not been able to find a problem when I use lou_translate tool directly. I can type in a Unicode string using the \xhhhh format and it works. John -- John J. Boyer; President, Chief Software Developer Abilitiessoft, Inc. http://www.abilitiessoft.com Madison, Wisconsin USA Developing software for people with disabilities For a description of the software, to download it and links to project pages go to http://www.abilitiessoft.com