Thanks for the response. It is still helpful to find out that something cannot be done (at least easily), so i'm off trying to find the solution.

I can see why it is easier to use one-to-many table solutions rather than a spreadsheet like approach, which is what i've been doing (ie a table with fields lname, phone1, phone2, phone3). one-to-many is much more flexible. but now that i want to put this information into a grid or listbox where people can see each contact with all their information in one row, i'm wondering about it. but the flexibility with design does make the initial part much easier.

As someone who is still learning a lot about vfp and programming, i'm thinking about how other more efficient programmers program. Often I think there must be an easier way than what i'm doing. sometimes it's helpful enough to know that there isn't.

Thanks,

Paul