>I have seen building SQL with embedded semicolons cause a syntax error, and removing them either programmatically before the macro or not adding them manually in the first place not have the error. Why is the length different depending on the alias and/or field names too?

Sorry Mike, I give up, cannot find what might be the problem and I spent to much time already on this (by the way, all my tests I did them using execscript instead of macro and got the same results, so is not macro specific)