Tracy -

I have been playing around with the trim mode and so far Trim to Nearest Character returns the best results. [..] Also, what exactly is Default Trimming in VFP9 and how does it differ from the other trim options?

I can answer part of your question here:

GDI+ allows several different ways that a truncated string can be expressed. The ReportBuilder application exposes these settings in the Format tab of the new Field/Expression Properties dialog box:

You might expect the default mode to be "Trim to nearest word" so as to ensure backward-compatibility with earlier versions of FoxPro. It's not. "Default Trimming" actually means "Use whatever the default string trimming mode of the ReportListener class that is processing the report". And, by default, that is "Trim to nearest word plus elipsis":

The decision to use this particular default mode was made mainly because GDI+ requires a little additional width to render text (MSDN includes a good description of why this is so), and as a consequence, any reports designed with tight space constraints in previous versions of FoxPro might well experience text expression truncation in VFP9. The visible indication of the truncation is desirable because otherwise it would be easy to miss that it happens at all, unless you were very familiar with the data being displayed.

I hope this helps.
- Colin