hi all I have a bunch of txt files from which I need to extract different set of lines: from line 1 to line 3 to be stored in a single comprehensive file called “headings.txt” and from line 4 to line 58 to be stored in different separate files called *new.txt (where * stays for the original filename) I’m stuck because I do not know how to combine this commands within the same cycle structure of a single batch please have a look on this awful stuff ::>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> @echo off setLocal EnableDelayedExpansion for %%A in (originali\*.txt) do ( set lineNUM=1 set filetxt=%%~nA for /f "skip=3 tokens=* delims=" %%L in (%%A) do (call :keeper %%L) ) Set lineNUM= Set filetxt= GoTo :EOF :keeper if %lineNUM% leq 3 echo %*>>headings.txt ::the next line is not working together with the previous one: how about to combine them? ::if %lineNUM% leq 51 echo %*>>%filetxt%new.txt set /a lineNUM+=1 ) GoTo :EOF ::>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Thanks again for your help max

@echo off setLocal EnableDelayedExpansion for /f "tokens=* delims= " %%a in ('dir/b/a-d') do ( set outfile=%%~Nanew.txt set /a N=0 for /f "tokens=* delims= " %%i in (%%a)do ( set /a N+=1 if !N! geq 1 if !N! leq 3 echo %%i >> headings.txt if !N! geq 4 if !N! leq 58 echo %%i >> !outfile! ) ) ===================================== If at first you don't succeed, you're about average. M2

thank you so much m2 a very neat solution: now I realise I was stuck (also) because I've frozen variables with % instead of using ! as you wisely suggested; after some slight modifications, among many other small things to adjust I needed to discard first 3 lines, your input worked perfectly! bye max

hi max, Yeah, I wondered if you wanted the first 3 in headers more than once. But I've learned the hard way not to second guess people; rather just try to answer the question. ===================================== If at first you don't succeed, you're about average. M2

if you can use gawk, download from here: http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/pac... NR<3 { print > "headings.txt"} NR>=4 && NR<=58 {print > "new.txt"} save the above as script.awk and on command line c:\test> gawk -f script.awk file

hi gostdog with no doubt your solution is really neat, I would say it is cristal clear, but I'm not jet much profcient in gawk thank you anyway for your contribution, I'll study it, I'll promise it...