further investigation shows, that the extra spacing occurs only
horizontally and you can also see this extra space when working with
shapes which take text (for example simple flowchart element). The space
(which is quite large) remains even if I set textpadding=0 for such
shapes. As far as I remeber this (mis-)behaviour wasn't there in 0.88.1!
I now use a CVS snapshot from April, 17th ..
maybe this has something to do with my fonts ...
Peter