>Well, along those lines, let me ask you this. I have been trying today to see how much manipulation is possible of variables (either local or those defined in the report designer) to create details which are outside of what I get with a cursor. (I hope that makes sense...The cursor as it stands for the report is correct; I'm trying to get a little more blood out of the turnip:) To give you a specific example, I was trying to see if I could create a string of last names (or array if that's possible) at the detail level of the report. I was trying to do this using a report variable, but it seems like those variables are all numeric, so I couldn't get my desired results.

Report variables do not need to use the Calculate option group on the Report>Variables menu option. You can create a variable with an "Initial Value " that is any data type, and then update that variable in the Value To Store:

ex
Report Variable: cAllLastNames
Initial Value: ""
Value to store: cAllLastNames+","+mytable.cLastName