Chuck,

The "\" command adds new line ( CHR(13) + CHR(10)) at the beginning of the line not at the end as you would expect. Change first "\" to "\\" wich doesn't add new line characters at all

>When I use textmerge I get a blank line on top of the file, is there a way I can get rid of this?

>SET TEXTMERGE TO (lcFile)
>SET TEXTMERGE ON NOSHOW
* --sb-- changed "\" to "\\" to get rid of the blank line 
*  at the beginning of the file
\\<<FILEHEADER>>
>SCAN
>\<<ACCTNBR>><<cchkno)>>
>ENDSCAN
>SET TEXTMERGE TO
>SET TEXTMERGE OFF