I have a textbox with a field from a table as the control source. I want the user to be able to click on the box and the backcolor change. No problem...I have it all set up...the only thing is that I do not want the user to be able to change the contents of the field...I want it to be read only...if I set the control to read only, then it will not take the backcolor command....if I take it off then everything works fine except the user can change the contents. Any suggestions? Tom Frustration is when you are programming and you don't know what you are doing...but hey, it's fun learning.