Many, many thanks to everyone who rallied to my distress call about exporting DXF from Adobe Illustrator, the salient conclusion being that if I upgrade from version 8.0 to version 9.0 it will do the trick.
To be certain that this was the case for both PC and Mac versions on 9.0 I phoned Adobe Sales in Edinburgh who didn't know the answer to my question so they put me on the Adobe Tech. Support who refused to tell me what their product would do without a Customer Ref. No. - of which I have four stored on disc for the different registered Adobe products I use. "So you won't give me the simple piece of information which will enable me to BUY another of your products?" "That's corrrrrect sirrrr" (Scottish dialect) Eventually I found the number and was told Mac version 9.0 WILL export DXF. I nominate Adobe as the most-cautious/least-helpful software house - with some of the best products - on the planet.....unless of course you know of another one ;-) Problem solved Thanks again everyone! Tony Moss