Appologise they are just examples copyed onto a disk.

My original code WAS using paste special (see opening post)

What is happening is the csv data is copyed or the values using ranges of
the same size are transfered. AS you said earlyer this means that it takes
upto the 12th and converts it to american format and leaves the rest as text
as it doesn't know what to do with it.

I am going to write a new import macro to rename the file (should be fun) to
a .txt and ten import and delimit the data when i get the time. Thanks for
your help on this matter but unless you know how to import it as the original
text sting i think the only other option is to go back a version of office as
2003 doesn't meet user needs. The banks and other customers i work with have
all trialed 2003 and not gone with it i just wish the company i work for
would trial anything befor forcing it on innocent emplyees.