note JHG Thank you for your time to start with. I went a step further and noticed the following. In my PERL code I have the following HTML tag --HTML poésieBEGIN-- This piece is a part of what I tell PERL to print in the outpout windows so I can copy/paste into a HTML file, really straitghtforward ins'nt it! But in the PERL output windows already it becomes --HTML po√©sieBEGIN-- where √© stands for the character é. The strangest part is that there are other é before and after in the code and they come out correctly as é !!! The use of the module you suggest is beyond my grasp I am afraid, thanks anyway 971141 971227