I am looking at creating a yearly report that could tell me what training and individual has completed for the entire year. I am using a value list with check boxes. When I currently search for (1) persons name, I get that name but all the other names as well. Also that persons name might not be the first one listed, it appears that it brings back the group of names whom have attended which included the one I am looking for. I would like to have just that persons name appear.

Two possibilities:

1. Are you are searching a field in a portal? This almost always produces unwanted results. There are some detailed discussions elsewhere on this forum about what happens when you do this. So, I won't repeat it here. Have a look at topics on searching in portals.

2. Are you doing this in a script? If so, your Enter Find Mode and Perform Find script steps need to have the "Restore Find Requests" option un-checked.

This article may also be some help. Tech Info Article 104770

I am doing a search from my field of check boxes, no script or portals. This is what I am trying to do-

Checkbox field

Student 1

Student 2

Student 3

Student 4

Student 5

I would like to do a search of what student 2 has completed. I would like to create a report so that I can only see student 2 listed in a field and all other info that is associated with student, but do not want to see all other students listed. What happens with the results from the above tech. article is that if student 2 is not choosen 1st it lists those that are.

Then the tech article that Slstrother referred to is the answer to your problem. The search will return any record that contains the word "Student" (i.e., all of your records).

The way that I prevent this problem is to use a non-breaking space between "student" and the number. That way, Filemaker will treat "Student 1" as all one word instead of two words.

To get the non-breaking space character, type option-space on a Macintosh. I'm not sure what key combination you would use on a PC.

And, you will have to go back and replace all of the regular spaces with non-breaking spaces in your existing records.

BTW, I don't recommend using the non-breaking space solution except when you are using a value list to enter the data. Otherwise, manually entered data with regular spaces will likely get mixed up with non-breaking spaces, and you will end up with a mess.

I don't think it would become a mess if you based your value list on a calc field Substitute( text, " ", "nbsp" ). (nbsp = non-breaking space character, whatever that might be on your platform)