>I'm coming from a dBase and Visual FoxPro background and trying to figure out how to work in a world without command lines in Access97. I want a field/control in my report to combine two trimmed fields as one. Real straightforward, I've got Last (name) field, First (name) field and I want my report to list:
>
>Doe, John
>Smith, Mary
>
>Tried using expression like "Trim(Last) + ", " + Trim(First)" as an expression in a control, but it's acting like a parameter
>and asking me what contact I want and entering 'Error' in the report.
>
>ideas?

What I usually do, is make that function as a field in the query from which I'm getting that information.

So, what I would have as a query for that report is:

SELECT *, Trim([FAMILY NAME]) & ", " & Trim([FIRST NAME]) AS fullname FROM [NEW CUSTOMER DATABASE];

In this sample, the fullname field contains the full name, with trimmed strings.

Hope this helps,

Hugo Dahl