Thanks for your reply,

I tested the string:

my $x = chr(174);
binmode STDOUT, ':utf8';
print "x has length ", length($x), " >>$x<<\n";
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It showed up as one char,

my $string = chr(174);

my  $contents =~ /$x/\®/g;
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This results in the proper substitution, I did search for an extended ascii table for the symbol, but somehow missed it. I will be looking up more information on the two solutions you showed.

Thanks again,