yes thanks Naomi. actually locate will be the way to go. but the confusion with scan is certainly cleared up for me now.
k
>>I had only used found with seek. it occurred to me in the middle of the night last night that I should be able to use it with locate.
>>thanks dragan - for the pointers.
>>
>In the first case you should have used SEEK function. FOUND() makes sense with LOCATE.