Not that I would really need to type in the following example, but if I didn't find something interesting, Hans would accuse me of not taking a look at it at all ;) \startMPpage draw (0,0)--(5cm,0); draw (0,0)--(5cm,5cm); picture p; p := \sometxt{\bTABLE \bTR\bTD abc\eTD\bTD xyz\eTD\eTR \bTR\bTD abc\eTD\bTD xyz\eTD\eTR \bTR\bTD abc\eTD\bTD xyz\eTD\eTR \eTABLE}; % or withcolor here draw p withcolor transparent(1,.5,red); \stopMPpage (To be honest I wanted to send the following example, but I didn't want to torture: %\startMPpage %draw \sometxt{ % \startCSV % a b c % \stopCSV % } ; %\stopMPpage ) General opinion: AMAZING speed, amazing feature! I love the fact that the labels are typest in the flow of the current document, so now macros defined earlier in the document may be used for labels as well. That's simply great! Also because of the fact that \def's refused to work inside of metafun graphics and no additional runs are needed. That's far more elegant and way more efficient that the way I would have to go for separating labels from \MPfigs Hans, that's marvellous! Thanks a lot! Mojca Just a side note: I noticed the new database module already in the beta, but the first Hans's fix (before Taco has touched it) introduced a new "tab-bug" which hasn't been quite resolved yet. If "separator=tab", it should trigger catcode change of tab to a "normal letter" and use that one for separating columns. Well, indeed it seems that the catcode is changed, but then I get the letter number 9 in EC font (macron) instead of going to new column. I'm now asking for impossible again, but: any simple/reasonable way to control the baseline/general positioning of the labels? (textext included text with baseline at y=0 by default, the new mechanism simply puts the lower corner to the baseline)