I have two problems with the echo command not displaying as I would like. The system reads the second line as “echo on”. Can a line starting with the word “on” follow the echo command and still display properly? Is there a work-around? echo I want to go home echo on Friday. I cannot get the second line to display: echo Add this line to BATCHFILE.BAT: echo if exist c:\GdCookie\nul xcopy /y c:\GdCookie\*.* c:\Windows\Cookies>nul (These are instructions I want to display on screen about how to add a line to a batch file. (GdCookie is a folder. The line works in the batch file; I just can’t get it to display properly.) ====================================================== It is the mark of an educated person never to demand more precision than the nature of the subject allows. (Aristotle) But I don’t want any less, either.

Concerning your echo ON problem. What I would do is a cheap fix, but you would have a space at left before each line is displayed. First line: echo I want to go home (With 2 spaces between echo and I). Second line: echo, one space, then Alt+255 (use the number pad on the right side of the keyboard), then on Friday. The Alt+255 is the non-appearing character in the original Ascii table, it is treated like a character but it looks like a space. This makes Dos think there is a three-letter word after the echo statement. By-the-way, thanks for all the good posts you keep putting up in the ME forum, Ren Man

If I recall correctly, I used to use 'echo.on' - W0rm - http://dos.li5.org

how about saving the instructions to a file, then just 'type' the file onto the screen. type howto.txt | more

Hi RMan. Worm is right, ECHO.ON will do it: echo.I want to go home echo.on Friday. About echoing the > (greater than) character, there are many methods to do that. I'll show two methods, both using PROMPT: @echo off echo @prompt a $G b$_> %temp%.\temp.bat %comspec% /c %temp%.\temp.bat |FIND "a" del %temp%.\temp.bat @echo off echo.EXIT|%comspec%/k prompt a $G b$_|FIND "a" Watch out for line wrapping. Such methods may also display the < (lower-than) char (use $L) and the | (pipe) char (use $B), which aren't ECHOable. Type prompt/? for more information. It's possible to put any character into a file via batch file, even a ctrl+z char. -- Secret_Doom - Leonardo Pignataro -- secret_doom@hotmail.com www.batch.hpg.com.br