A little while ago I asked whether \doifmode and friends should have an \ignorespaces at the end. Hans Hagen answered "no" and after some reasoning (probably along the same lines as his) I agree with him. Thus one uses in a quite natural way: some text\doifmode{xyz}{ conditional text} following text doing nothing else than: some text conditional text following text. With regard to this it is understandable and correct that extra space is taken in the next construct: some text \doifmode{xyz}{ conditional text} following text. But it looks different to me when using the \startmode .. \stopmode pair. ---- some text. \startmode[xyz] some conditional text. \stopmode further text. In order to avoid here the extra space one has to code an extra % ---- some text. \startmode[xyz]% some conditional text. \stopmode further text. or (not preferred imho): ---- some text.% \startmode[xyz] I think this is error prone as it is al too easy to forget the %. The situation here differs from the \doifmode-case. I tend to believe that the fact that the \startmode[] .. \stopmode construct invites one to separate the statements with newlines (whitespace thus). Therefore I would ask if this plea for an \ignorespaces effect at the end of the \startmode[xyz] should be honored. Hans van der Meer