thanks peter- that clears up several questions- looks like i was beating a dead horse trying to get the software to do something it wasn't programmed for- but i still have the issue of how to open the .sty file that's stored in bb (see my reply 340575 to jford). am i missing a driver or program to open this file. hopefully you, john, or anyone reading this can tell me how to open the file (style) i created.

thanks in adv