Full_Name: Giles L Crane Version: 2.8.0 2008-10-20 OS: Windows XP Submission from: (NULL) (71.168.215.186) paste(rep(" ",10),sep="") [1] " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " As I read the documentation for paste(), this should have produced " " that is, all spaces pasted together. Hope this is helpful. GLC