>No, you are not silly :). What I didn't say (just for the simplicity) is that I want to set the value "** No Employee ID **" in the column EMPL_NAME where EMPL_ID is blank. So your suggestion with the PADR() in the INDEX expression works though.

Ah, good, I thought it was the lack of coffee after a long weekend where I was rudely awaken by calls from work where I needed to fix problems created by others.. These were probably the last freaking days where I could sleep before my daughter needs rides for the ice rinks at ungodly hours of the weekends...