Dear all, As I understand it, a fixed width section (BTW, is "fixed width section" the official term for this?) is defined as a line which is started by zero or more spaces, and then a colon, *and then a space*, and then zero or more characters. :line1 : :line3 But many editors (Emacs including) likes to trim trailing spaces, so when the file is saved, the second line loses its space: :line1 : :line3 Should the second line be parsed as a fixed width section too or not? -- sh