I posted a complex bug report to pdftex@tug.org. Hartmut posted a change to tex.ch2 which partially fixes it, and suggested we move discussion to this list. So ... http://tug.org/pipermail/pdftex/2004-July/005138.html http://tug.org/pipermail/pdftex/2004-July/005139.html http://tug.org/pipermail/pdftex/2004-July/005140.html Thanks, karl