>If a block of text is going to be repeated verbatim amongst multiple records, why not have a child table store the memo fields and have the parent link in to the appropriate child table one-to-many?

Great idea, but it's only in a certain number of records that these fields will say the same thing.... that's not clear enough. I mean, like we have 8000 records and for 600 of them the memo field would say the same thing but for the rest it would be different. Actually, parent child would work, I guess. But the system's already written... I'm just trying to maintain it ... and the memo fields are already there. So I guess that's the main reason :)

But thanks for the help everyone!