Hi J. Tarr, thanks for your quick response! Your suggestion didn't help. The point is, that a statement like `1st expression` = (a^5+b^5)/(a+b); already does some evaluation, i.e. the expression is changed ... of course mathematically correct. What I want is to create an exam problem, so Maple ougth to just neatly print the whole thing, without changing a bit ... ... hope this made it clearer ... some more ideas? edit: ooops, may be I miss here something: what does CTRL-L? couldn't find it in the menues? thanks for your help, Walter