Hi there, after the mess I created by submitting those patches using dict.pop (which is not available in Python 2.2) here is a patch that hopefully solves the problems: As I found out, cbook.py already contained a routine popd which is supposed to be a replacement for dict.pop, which is missing in Python2.2. This new patch now reverts to my original kwargs-cleanup-patch but replaces pop by popd The code runs through examples/backend_driver.py (except for some unrelated issue in the PS backend which I do not have the time to debug right now) B.t.w: In axes.py, line 1461, the CVS version contains a typo "gry" instead of "get" which is also fixed by this patch. Ciao, Nobbi -- _________________________________________Norbert Nemec Bernhardstr. 2 ... D-93053 Regensburg Tel: 0941 - 2009638 ... Mobil: 0179 - 7475199 eMail: <No...@Ne...>