dear friends, I'm not able to write a simple text file with UTF8 or UTF16 encoding; any esoteric combination of unidecode and uniencode statement give me a 1-byte text file... any help? TIA, carlo -- OTTO, via Garibaldi 5, 10122 Torino - 011.4407045 - www.otto.to.it Non uso MS Office, se possibile non speditemi allegati .doc .xls .ppt .mdb!