i'd like to strip tab characters from a text field. i thought the easiest way to do this would be:

Set Field ["textfield", "Substitute (textfield, "tabchar", "")"]

but i can't see how to insert the tab character into the above formula. is there a way to do this in native FM, rather than 'export text - process in text program - import'.

FM will insert and delete tab characters, the catch is that you have to copy and paste the tab character into a field or calculation in FM so it is available for your replace statements. Copy and Paste will work. On the Mac (were there is more need to strip/replace characters from PC files) there is a neat freeware app called Character Assassin that allows you to specify any ASCII character and copy it to the clipboard.

-bd