Thanks for the help, when I made the changes and ran the script it hangs and returns a null file newstat.fff after about 5 mins. The Statutes.fff file is 400mb. What I am attempting to do is relpace words in the main file from a list of words in a text file (each word is seperated by a line break). I want the output to be a new file which contains all the old text minus the words not wanted.