Hello Phil, In general, if you only need the 'latest release' or any release, you can follow the links from http://poi.apache.org/
I guess the reason you are trying to use SVN is that you need access to the very latest main-line (hopefully to help contribute ; ) >From what I understand, 'ViewVC' is a web based interface to svn: http://svn.apache.org/viewvc/poi/trunk/ I use it for browsing, but not much else. What command are you using to do the checkout? For example: svn co https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/poi/trunk myLocalTrunk The total size of an svn checkout for POI is ~140M in 14,000 files, so this command might take a few minutes. I generally don't build scratchpad all by itself, but I guess you could if you have the other POI jars available. I just tried this checkout and it worked OK (~36M, 2200 files): svn co https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/poi/trunk/src/scratchpadmyLocalScratchpad If you have a unix-like OS, 'svn' may already be installed. I use the one available with cygwin. Alternatively, you can work with TortoiseSVN, which is a shell-extension gui that provides a wrapper for much of the functionality available on the command line. Hope this helps, Josh
