thanks for the tip, Cetin. I actually wouldn't need Excel at all if VFP did the following:

Search a text file for a given word;
Be able to scroll down or up from that position by a given number of rows (similar to the offset in excel)
save the value on that line to a variable

i spent a number of hours (who's kidding who - days) on getting foxpro to do this, and couldn't get it to work. excel offers all of these things.

if you have a suggestion for the above, i would be very happy to hear it. thanks for your help.

paul