I don't know precisely what you want to do, but I guarantee, edbrowse can do it. You can edit an executable file, find the string "hello world", change the w to a j, write the file, and run it, and get the output: hello jorld To undos a file, do this. ,s/\r$// CR in the middle of a line should probably become a true line break. ,s/\r/\n/g Change all collections of tabs and spaces to a single space. Remember, whitespace doesn't mean anything in html, so may as well simplify it. ,s/[ \t]+/ /g I have an edbrowse script that does a fair job of unwording a file, so you can read the text in whatever.doc. For more info, send questions to eklhad@xxxxxxxxxxxx Karl _______________________________________________ Blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list