That is the way to tell excel that it is char data

You only see the quote in the formula bar.
This is what I do with char fields and no user complaints so far

>This is great, except the quote is in the cell. Our users don't want the quote.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Jerry
>
>
>>
>>If you want excel to consider the contents of a cell as char data, simply prepend a single quote
>>ie
>>

>>oSheet.ActiveSheet.Cells(lnRow, 2).Value = ['] + rtrim(mycursor.field2)
>>