Hans wrote:

in cont-new (or cont-sys) you can say:

\def\testbytesequence{}

This 'test' was added in order to determine of tex runs in 8 bit mode. I wonder where the Malformed message comes from. Since when is perl utf-8 by default?

(i run perl 5.8.0)

I'm running 5.8.0 too (on Redhat). I have added \def\testbytesequence{} to the end of cont-new and the errors go away - but unfortunately I'm still not getting any register output. I still get register entries : 0 -> 0 entries 0 references although the .tui file is full of entries as far as I can tell. Maybe something esle is wrong - still working on minimal file. Hans wrote:

can you check your cp8bit.tcx file? it probably isn't 8 bit -) should be:

0x00 0x00 % 0x01 0x01 % 0x02 0x02 % 0x03 0x03 % 0x04 0x04 %

etc

Well on my system that file (which is dated February 29 2000) starts like this more /usr/TeX/texmf/web2c/cp8bit.tcx: %% cp8bit.tcx: transparent encoding translation table for TeX %% input: any 8-bit text encoding %% internal TeX: the same encoding (nothing changes, but teTeX will display %% 8-bit messages on console and in logfile) %% comment: This is required in teTeX to see 8-bit messages at console and %% in logfile (they are displayed in ^^xx form by default). %% Usage: add %% %& --translate-file=cp8bit.tcx %% as a first line of your document. %% %% Prepared by Alexander Bokovoy %% (1999) Public domain 0x80 0x80 % 0x81 0x81 % 0x82 0x82 % 0x83 0x83 % 0x84 0x84 % 0x85 0x85 % 0x86 0x86 % 0x87 0x87 % etc. And the first lines of my log file for the job are: This is pdfeTeXk, Version 3.141592-1.11a-2.1 (Web2C 7.5.2) (format=cont-en 2004. 8.22) 23 AUG 2004 08:32 entering extended mode %&-line parsing enabled. (/usr/TeX/texmf/web2c/cp8bit.tcx) Thanks for any further insight! Duncan