thanks for the suggestion greg. no luck with that avenue either.

k

>>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.
>
>
>Karen,
>
>If you
>

>use table excl
>

>then
>

>modi struct
>

>lets you access the values on the right hand side
>
>
>>
>>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.