Thanks for the feedback!

In this case, I think my problem is that I'm using parentheses where I shouldn't. The "CharProps" is a 'property' in OLE, and that is usually accessed like so:

 $vsoChars->{Begin} = 2;

For this property, though, there are different parts you can access, so there is an additional 'cell index' that needs to be passed in to access the correct property. 'visCharacterColor' is a constant, it's really just the number 1. I can't figure out how to get the cell index (1) passed so I can set what I want (the color) to 2 (red)...

I've looked into the perl OLE documentation I could find and lots of web searching but no luck...so far...

Thanks!