I'm having a problem when the first line or first character of a file is blank. I need to get rid of both of them when they occur but don't want to delete the line. Does anyone have any suggestions?

if the line is blank is it padded w/ spaces kinda blank or is a carriage return?

looks like it's padded with a space on the blank line.

sed 's/^ *//' file1|sed '/^$/d'|sed '/^ $/d' > file2

# cat file1

Line 2
 Line 3
  Line 4

# cat file2
Line 2
Line 3
Line 4
#

I think that last SED command should actually be sed '/^ *$/d'.

Also, maybe this'll be faster than invoking SED three times:
sed -e 's/^ *//' -e '/^$/d' -e '/^ *$/d' file1 > file2

see i knew someone wouldnt be as sloppy as me.

Thanks oombera and optimus... both of the solutions each of you gave worked like a charm. I tried sometime similar to the end of the line as well.. with some mixed success.

Thanks again for your assistance.... and if you have any suggestions on how to get rid of the space at the end of the line, let me know. Harold