curious wrote:
> > could anyone help and tell me what I am doing wrong??
> > ie.select_list( :name , "leftsegments").select({$Guide}")

I suspect the trailing newline character; "\n", is what's eating your
lunch on this. Here's what I cobbled-up and it works just fine...

file = File.open("test.txt", "r+")
lines = file.readlines()

lines.each {|testName|
  ie.select_list(:name, "leftsegments").select(testName.chop!) #--
notice use of .chop!
  sleep(0.25)
}

file.close()
lines.clear()