> $ DISPLAY= abiword -t txt /tmp/test.doc > $ ls -l /tmp/test.txt > -rw-r--r-- 1 tzafrir tzafrir 58 2009-02-12 04:27 /tmp/test.txt Thanks! That works from text mode. I'll have to do some tests and see which is the best now... :-) does that trick work with other apps? Daniel.