Adding dashes to a field automatically

[Thumperman]

Hi All--

I am trying to think of a clever way to add dashes to a field. For example, I have a field called telephone # which contains 7 digits. I have another field called telephone no dash. Currently, telephone dash is the field users will be doing data entry. The telephone # field is a calculation field = left(telephone no dash,3) & "-" & right(telephone no dash,4). If a user enters 2345678 in the telephone no dash field, 234-4578 will be calculated.

Now my dilema...I want to give the users the hidden feeling that this is automatic. I overlapped the two fields and uncheck the "allow entry into field" for telephone # so they are forced to enter data only the the field telephone no dash. However, the overlapped fields looks messy because both fields will contain data. I could change the text for telephone no dash to white so it won't show on browse mode but then the users will not see anything as they type. Can someone help? Is there a better way of going about this? Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

Thumperman

[Chuck]

For the field on top, the one that doesn't allow user entry, make the fill color white. This will hide the field below, but then the field is clicked on, since it doesn't allow entry, the field below will be entered into.

Chuck

[Thumperman]

Thanks Chuck,

Just the step I needed! It worked!

Thumperman