Thin-layer chromatography, first derivative, ratio spectra derivative spectrophotometry and Vierordt's method have been developed for the simultaneous determination of paracetamol and drotaverine HCl. TLC densitometric method depends on the difference in Rf values using ethyl acetate:methanol:ammonia (100:1:5 v/v/v) as a mobile phase. The spots of the two drugs were scanned at 249 and 308 nm over concentration ranges of 60-1200 microg/ml and 20-400 microg/ml with mean percentage recovery 100.11%+/-1.91 and 100.15%+/-1.87, respectively. The first derivative spectrophotometric method deals with the measurements at zero-crossing points 259 and 325 nm with mean percentage recovery 99.25%+/-1.08 and 99.45%+/-1.14, respectively. The ratio spectra first derivative technique was used at 246 and 305 nm with mean percentage recovery 99.75%+/-1.93 and 99.08%+/-1.22, respectively. Beer's law for first derivative and ratio spectra derivative methods was obeyed in the concentration range 0.8-12.8 and 0.4-6.4 microg/ml of paracetamol and drotaverine HCl, respectively. Vierordt's method was applied to over come the overlapping of paracetamol and drotaverine HCl in zero-order spectra in concentration range 2-26 and 2-40 microg/ml respectively. The suggested methods were successfully applied for the analysis of the two drugs in laboratory prepared mixtures and their pharmaceutical formulation. The validity of the methods was assessed by applying the standard addition technique. The obtained results were statistically agreed with those obtained by the reported method.