Thanks Jason. I was under the impression that python needed files in 10 version to extract dataframe names, scales etc. Is this not correct? Can i use this to convert from 10x to 9x?

sorry... I am capturing the extents of multiple mxd's into a single shape file (working) and now I want to write the dataframe ID into the shape file. It should also add in the name of the mxd and the scale. For some reason the following ... for el in arcpy.mapping.ListLayoutElements(mxd2, "DATAFRAME_ELEMENT"): ExtentIDStore = str(el.name) print ExtentIDStore #used to see which item to add to the shape file print ExtentIDStore[x] # should show the full entry at storage x but instead shows the character at x ... Thanks for your help.

Thanks...I made these changes and now get the following. ...