But your distinction between a plain text file and the .html output of your OP puzzles me again, as any difference should be negligible: the .html source is, to all intents and purposes as far as writing the file is concerned, a "plain text file."

Or does your actual script open a browser after writing the output? That, of course, would add a bit more overhead. In that case, you cantrim the rendering time by assigning width to table and the ten tds.

OTOH, it may be even more useful to await better answers from Tk gurus here.

But your distinction between a plain text file and the .html output of your OP puzzles me again, as any difference should be negligible: the .html source is, to all intents and purposes as far as writing the file is concerned, a "plain text file."

I know what you mean. In the end I suspect that it was just because when I tried sending the output as plain text it greatly reduced the number of lines I sent out. All the HTMLSTUFF was removed and my do_this sub was reduced to a few lines.

sub do_this() {
open FILE, "> $filename" or die "ERROR WRITTING FILE: $filename\nSyste
+m reported $!";


print FILE "\n"; 
foreach (sort keys(%stuff1) ) { print FILE "$stuff1{$_} | ";}
print FILE "\n"; 
foreach (sort keys(%stuff2) ) { print FILE "$stuff2{$_} | ";}


close FILE;
system "start /b $filename";
}
[download]

If going from HTML to plain text speeds things up considerably then Tk isn't your problem! Take BrowserUK's advice in 784062 and look at your setup to see what could be causing the problem.

Elda Taluta; Sarks Sark; Ark Arks