Equipped with the ideas that flowed from your request for "set per", fate took me to the Active State website where a posting from 2007 shows that this problem existed even then. Any suggested fixes from that discussion were 'work arounds' that did not work for me. (ie, 'perl file.ps | perl file2.ps')
As for your suggestion to get a more recent version, configuration management requirements cause me to stick to this version (5.8) of perl.
Other folks suggestions to include a routine for an input file are likely the next best route.
Thank you for your help Brother BrowserUK
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