W/o parenthesis 'mfilefrom' and 'mfilenameandloc' are treated by COPY FILE command as file names.
Enclosing 'mfilefrom' and 'mfilenameandloc' in parenthesis make them a Name expression.

>thanks sergey. i was initilly using the code
>

>COPY FILE mfilefrom TO mfilenameandloc
>

>but it wasn't working so i moved into the 2 lines i have below. I've re-tried the one line command with (&mfilefrom), (mfilefrom), &mfilefrom but to no avail.
>~M
>
>
>>Why use macro substitution when Name expression is appropriate?
>>
>>

>>COPY FILE (mfilefrom) TO (mfilenameandloc)
>>

>>
>>
>>>I am copying files from a clipboard to a location in a folder (thanks sergy). However when the source files have a space in them I cannot copy them. I take out all of the spaces for the destination file but I dno't know how to deal with the spaces on the source file. the pertinent code is below. mfilefrom will be something like "letter to customer about overdue accounts.doc" and the mfilenameandloc will have a full directory listing "K:\..." all with no spaces and then "lettertocustomeraboutoverdueaccounts.doc". If i use source files wihtout spaces it works so i think it's the space in the source that is the problem.
>>>

>>>mruncode = "COPY FILE " + mfilefrom  + " TO " + mfilenameandloc
>>>&mruncode
>>>

>>>~M