I was getting wierd results because I was having excel open up an html file,
convert that to a spreadsheet. But in the process excell was formatting
some of the cells as being merged. If I remove the merge from all
cells then the problem goes away.
Thanks
Steve
** select the whole document
num_cols = o.Application.ActiveSheet.UsedRange.Columns.Count
num_rows = o.Application.ActiveSheet.UsedRange.Rows.Count
this_area = "a1:"+chr( 97 + num_cols -1)+alltrim(str(num_rows))
o.Application.Range(this_area).Select

With o.Application.Selection
.Orientation = 0
.AddIndent = 0
.ShrinkToFit = 0
.MergeCells = 0
EndWith

o.ActiveSheet.Range("E10:e23").Select
wait