K, my brain hurts a bit... I have a plain-file(blast-output) that's already been formatted. Of course, when I just read it in php and send it to html, the layout is totally gone (newlines, spaces, tabs, ...). Anyone has an idea how to easily fix it? $data = str_replace("\n","<br/>",$data); //fixes newlines I'd say that replacing every multiple (2+) occurrence of a space should be replaced by the same multiple of ( ), but I can't figure it out exactly (brain is still hurting): $data = preg_replace("/(\s)(\s+)", ... ,$data); // -->how do you get the count of \s+ ???, so i can replace it by the same count of 's ? anyone? -- ================================================================== Michiel Van Bel PhD student Tel:+32 (0)9 331 36 95 fax:+32 (0)9 3313809 VIB Department of Plant Systems Biology, Ghent University Technologiepark 927, 9052 Gent, BELGIUM mibel@psb.ugent.be http://www.psb.ugent.be ==================================================================