>>I guess what I'm looking for is a symbol for an empty memo field like the symbol for empty date field is {}.
>
>Just a guess, but try SPACE(257) or one larger than a normal field can handle (I think its 256) or chr(13) + chr(10), those may be interperted as a memo, though techinally not blank.

Nope, you get a "String is too long to fit" error. The join with a one record table with a memo field is the only way I know that works.