thnks all. that pretty answers my question.
for clarification it is a .dbf file and when trying to modify the structure (using table designer) i noticed that i could
not access the option on the right hand side under display it reads 'format' then ''input mask''.
seemed odd to me.

k

>>is there a way of accessing the input mask of a field using the modify structure route.
>>i would like to impose lower case+3digit for the format of a field. right now errors arise when operator enters upper case and i can only catch it on post auto reviews of the database entries. accessing the table is done through browse.
>>thanks
>>
>>k
>
>What do you mean by InputMask of the field? Is your table part of the database?
>
>You can set InputMask programmatically in form's Init for the textbox.
> Tore also wrote: But you can't force lower case, without adding some code.