In your first example, you test that open succeeded with a die, but you did not do that in your second example. Add or die $! and see what happens. Also, you can replace the while loop with the succinct:

my $pageht = do {local $/;<HTMLP>};
[download]

and don't forget to use strict and warnings. You might want to also make sure that material_office.html is readable by the webserver (chmod 644).

Update - ahh good catch dimmesdale! Yes, you cannot open a file like that:

$locat = "www.nsn.org/elghome/material_office2.htm";
[download]

If this file is on the same server as your script, open it directly, and do you mean .htm or html?

my $locat = '/path/to/htdocs/elghome/material_office2.htm';
open FILE, $locat or die "can't read $locat: $!";
[download]

If this file is on another server, use LWP.

jeffa

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
H---H---H---H---H---H---
(the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)