...

(beware, the font-chi modules talk about unicode while actually it's about dedicated mapings resembling a unicode approach; this \defineucharmapping stuff)

Yes indeed, that had me going... :-) Oh well.

Thanks for the insight, I'll feedback further.

I have to say I'm unable to make any sense of it at the moment. I think I understand the logic of what is needed but understanding the current implementation is way beyond my current capacity. Does anyone else have a need to process Simplified Chinese encoded in UTF-8? If not, perhaps I should just explore getting my sources changed into GBK. If there was someone else with the same need we could perhaps share the burden... Thanks again, Duncan (PS I'm away for the next week, please don't think I'm ignoring you if I don't reply over that period.)