I used to have excel 2000 and it crashed a lot, upgraded to xp with all service packs and it got a bit better (less crashing on printout()) but still it's poor. I'll try creating a simple looping program that does all that is here - perhaps with a print to file switch to save costs a bit :)

if it crashes for me I'll upload it to some space and post a link, perhaps someone will find a reason.

thanks for all the ideas, I have tried most but it's always good to go over things again.