>In Access, the workaround might be to create the expression you want to index on in a separate field.
>
>I don't know whether Access supports calculated fields, or fields that are updated automatically; or whether you can index on those.

Yes, Access does support some calculated fields, I believe I saw in the Help. Not sure about the auto-update. The way things are going, it probably won't work. But I'm leaving no stone unturned, I'll test it, and thanks for the idea.

You can't index using them, that much I do know now. However, I'm also going to look into an SQL solution, where the calculated fields might help, too.

Looks like I'm really earning my pay ($0) for this hobby article :-)