Hi Joris and David

Well, b****r me ;o). This has had me stumped for days! Thank you for
your quick replies and for sorting my problem out so eloquently. Easy
when you know how and I'm glad there are those that do - I could kick
myself.

I thought xls:choose was only executing one branch but it was the
for-each that was confusing me. As I say I have a lot to learn.

kind regards

Laing