I'm stumpted and I'm afraid the answer is right in front of me.

I have 2 databases. One is Students the other Repository which contains various activities (papers, travel, presentations).

A paper can have more than one author. When I enter a new paper I want to be able to list all authors and later do a search by author to find all papers by that author.

I thought a value list using the name field in Students to start but then I don't know if I should use a related field or a portal or another method.

Thanks for any help.

Your post title is kind of misleading. From what I can tell, you are asking from which table can you do your search effectively! I think your join table would be the ideal place to do the search in a 1:M relationship.

Dropdown with Auto Complete on would be my suggestion based on the information you've given.

How do I then choose more than one author in the author field?

Your post title is kind of misleading. From what I can tell, you are asking from which table can you do your search effectively! I think your join table would be the ideal place to do the search in a 1:M relationship.

You can do that in a portal in the Paper table. Note: The pk_Paper_ID and pk_Author_ID are unique, such as, auto-enter serial ID fields. See attached quick sample.

Paper.zip

I appreciate your help and your sample makes perfect sense. But, when I try to duplicate it I have problems. I have attached my version.

You can do that in a portal in the Paper table. Note: The pk_Paper_ID and pk_Author_ID are unique, such as, auto-enter serial ID fields. See attached quick sample.

portals.fp7.zip

change the result of your calculation for calculated NAME in the STAFF TABLE from NUMBER to TEXT.