Format Telephone Numbers

[jacger]

I am a fairly new user to program. Moving over from Access. I have not found a way to mask or format a phone number automatically. Would like to type just numbers and have mask of (xxx) xxx-xxxx fill for me. How can I do this.

[Harv]

One possibility:

Two fields, exactly the same size, centered horizontally and vertically. The top field, called, say, "numbers formatted" is a calculation, resulting in text, with the formula:

"(" & Left(numbers, 3) & ") " & Middle(numbers, 4, 3) & "-" & Right(numbers, 4)

Use the "format>field format" dialog to disallow entry into this top field. Fill the field with a solid color to hide the field below.

The second, bottom field called "numbers" (the name of the field is used in the formula above) is a text field, with entry allowed.

When you click on the two centered fields, you can only enter info (in the form of xxxxxxxxxx) into the bottom one (numbers). When you click out of the two fields, you can only see the top one (numbers formatted), which has formatted the number correctly. Use the "formatted numbers" field for any exports that require the phone number in its proper form.

[This message has been edited by Harv (edited December 05, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Harv (edited December 05, 2000).]