David,
Thank you very much. You were right, the spaces are caused by
<xsl:output method="xml"
[...]
indent="yes"
xalan:indent-amount="2"/>
Changing this "yes" to "no" keeps xalan from introducing the spaces.
I took the opportunity to up date my versions of both xalan and ant.
Unfortunately, the extra spaces are put in with these versions as well.
I believe this is a bug in xalan.
Thanks too for the clarification on the "Â".
All the best,
William BC Crandall
Post Office Box 187
Lagunitas, CA 94938
bc(_dot_)crandall(_at_)earthlink(_dot_)net
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