ah, thanks! yeah that's part of the problem, 1 file has nice neat columns and the other simple straight horizontal lines that go on forever. tho strangely when i just did simple cut n paste, adding a long straight lines to the columns, it worked. i'll get that xml plugin. unfortunately after looking at the files it looks like some use the exact same lines. like shotgun blah blah, and shotgun blah blah blah. that won't work to use like shotgun anim pistol AND shotgun anim shotgun. rough examples. i'm not home now to look. but won't stuff like that conflict?