Bill -

I sort of have to take the opposite tack. Since the other half of my partnership uses our system in her work (and I'm expected to provide all the "tech support" we've got), I'm forced to keep a pretty "clean" system. That means I have to be very cautious about installing even the most innocent appearing "utilities," since my machine shares the system with hers, and little things can do a lot of damage. Even something as innocent as my installation of a "maverick" font on my machine can (and did once) "poison" her book layout on her machine.

On the other hand, by keeping only standard, documented programs (mostly from sources approved by her customers) - and by learning as much as we can about using them to do everything we need to do, we very seldom have to resort to arcane diagnostics or special purpose programs; and we can do just about anything we need or want to.

The "buy-in" to get a basic software setup with "office grade commercial software" can be pretty steep, which is why I suggested in "that other thread" that anyone thinking seriously about new systems should look for bargains in the software package before worrying too much about the hardware price - which is pretty much the same from any supplier who will bundle a good software package.

I'll repeat that the AllChars utility, which was a deliberate violation against my "house rules" about downloads, was recently very useful to me. But (*grin back at ya'*) anything you have to "code," like accents, umlauts, and such, is probably coming from the "other page" and is in the 128 to 255 range (not standard 128).

John