I've been trying to work around this but don't seem to be getting anywhere. I
would much prefer not to have to select the shape array in order to make the
font bold, but the only way seems to be to do them individually with
..textframe (and because there might be 15 shapes in the array........forget
it)

This works for BOTH shapes:
ActiveSheet.Shapes.Range(Array("Text Box 26900", "Text Box 26901")).Select
With Selection
.Font.FontStyle = "Bold"
.ShapeRange.Fill.Visible = msoTrue
.ShapeRange.Fill.ForeColor.SchemeColor = 52
End With

and this works for ONLY ONE shape (because of .textframe)
With ActiveSheet.Shapes("Text Box 26900")
.TextFrame.Characters.Font.Bold = True
.Fill.Visible = msoTrue
.Fill.ForeColor.SchemeColor = 52
End With

Does anyone have a solution, or am I stuffed? Regards, Brett.