Mark,
Many thanks for the reply and especially for taking time on your Sunday. I haven't used wxMaxima (or Maxima) for a couple of years so please correct me if I should be responding differently i.e. through the archives.
Thanks for catching my error on "maxima-init" in quotes. I'm obviously a novice with Maxima. The Maxima learning curve is steep but you always need to watch your syntax!
For whatever reason my "maxima-init.mac" file had a space embedded in the name and was "maxima-init<space>.mac". I couldn't see this from the gnome interface but after doing an 'ls' from terminal I saw the problem. After correction all works as should. (Could I blame it on the keyboard?)
I am not so much interested in editing the .wxMaxima file as I am in understanding it's possibilities. I grew up in the days of 'ini' files and I always have to know what they are doing. The wxMaxima site isn't too helpful in this regard.
Thanks again,
Ron