Amen. If Tex can't do what it thinks is a good job, it throws a fit and violates the margin, hoping to force a rewrite. Fortunately, one can shut off the line-break algorithm and simply fill greedily. The command to do so is \sloppy--an ironic descriptor of text that looks better, albeit not up to Tex's discriminating standard. Further irony: when obliged to write in Tex, I have resorted to turning \sloppy mode on globally. Apologies for airing an off-topic pet peeve, Doug