obfuscated teamster_jr After another long break between posting, here's my latest effort. <p> <b>update:</b> here's a shorter version: <code> $_="JUST ANOTHER PERL HACKER,";s#.{5}#$d=5;map{$d+=$f++%2?3*$_:$_}@a=map {split//}unpack C5,$&;$_=join"",$"x3,$t="| |",map{/ /?$_:do{$l=$z=unpack B7,pack v,unpack(x.$_.C,"5A;eKYWc_3")-40<<1;$z=~s/./1^$&/eg;$m=reverse$z ;${qw.l m m l l m.[$c++%12]||z}}}@a=(0,splice(@a,0,5," $t "),@a,10-$d%10 ),$t.$/;s/\d/$&?"|":$"/eg;"$_$_ 5 $t".join$"x5,$",@a," $t\n\n"#eg;print" <pre style='font:900 10 courier;line-height:8px;letter-spacing:-4px'>$_" </code> this outputs an html fragment - <strike>hopefully it's browser compliant</strike> which probably only properly works in Moz.<br>If not you should be able to see what's going on...<br> [http://www.barcodeisland.com/ean13.phtml|this] might explain what's happening. <br> alex