text area with quotes

this seems so obvious yet it is giving me problems. I have a text area in a form that is passed to a php page to be written to a database. first though It displays the contents of the form in a preview page. then if everything is good the user click the button and it write to the DB. I pass the contents of the text area straight to the next page (i.e. $form_item_name) so i never mess with the variable. now for the problem. when it displays the variable it adds the escape character (\) to any ' or " in the text. if I resend the same document it adds more. how do i get it to display 's and "s in a variable without php adding the \?? -- Nathan Kline i.e. Man in the Box mitb@mitb.net