I'm using OPCda, I get a string when I look at my bar code readers, but not when I look at my PLC's (omron NJ's) but I've fixed a work around now, just read all the bytes from the string and input/output programmatically. I found out later that it was the OPCServer (kepware) and the plc's lack of talking correctly about data types to each other (kepware refuses to see it as string data, keeps seeing it as individual integers) everywhere in the program and outside HMI's it is treated as an ASCII string with no problem. It seems to have to do with the OMRON Kepware driver, the kepware driver I'm using for keyence treats string like strings without a problem. Gotta love, or hate it, none of them are worth a shit, but it's what I'm stuck with. Thanks for the quick update Archie, sorry but I'm so busy now I couldn't get back to post this til now. Got to say you got one hell of a good piece of software here, wish there was a good manual for it. later