Hi. I'm confused about this as well. The help notes in MediaLab for 'variable reference' in 'Custom Items' include the following:

Note that you can also substitute calculated values from a responses.xls values directly by placing the variable name in angular brackets. For example, if you had a calculated value of total in your responses.xls file, you could enter <total> in your HTML file and MediaLab would substitute the correct value at the time the HTML is displayed.

However, when I've try to present a variable like <total> as part of the text in an HTML file presented during an experiement it just isn't displayed. I know my variable name is correct because I've check it in the responses.xls file. Plus when I just use the 'Instructions' item and can display the variable (using <> brackets) without problem. Am I doing something wrong - or is it like stagaz suggests - Medialab can't do this yet?

Willie