I am phasing in data from Lotus. My append topic has been nicely answered under 'Tables' topics. Now the problem, when I try adding a new record in 'Forms', which should show my new unique autonumber, I get the #Name? problem. I went to the form design, clicked on properties and in Format typed "autonumber" which yielded '=autonumber'. I sthis the wrong place to change the field definition?

You should have your Autonumber field in your table. If you do not have one there then you will need to add it. The Autonumber field will show up in your Field List for the form if it is a field in your table.

Tks again. It appears, therefore that calling up and trying to use the autonumber in a pre-existing .dbf file is not the way to go. (Definition on this fld is just 'long integer'Basically I must re-import the data, add the autono. when prompt option exists, then do my append with "No starting at x" and then, and only then will all be fine. Access still seems incredibly complex c.f. Lotus Approach.

You CAN append data with existing numeric ids into an autonumber column. To do this, define the new table including the autonum primary key. Import the old data into a temp table. Then write an append query that takes the data from the temp table and appends it to the new table. Make sure the the original numeric id field is paired with the new autonum field.

Once your data is loaded, Access will figure out what the highest key value is and the autonumber will start assigning from that point. Say you imported 35,000 records and the highest key value was 102,367 - the next autonumber to be assigned will be 102,368.

Tks kindly. I'll give that a go, as otherwise my input form must show both old ID no and new autonumber...rather messy. Meanwhile with the new table in place, my master query wont run, because it claims ambiguous relationships in outer joins, and as there are 8 outer joins I also have to sort out why some alias tables are showing a proper 1-many and others are refusing to. Any clues, since all the outer tables worked well (ie allowed all lookup data to show on the input form) before?

Appending problem finally working........

[This message has been edited by Rich_Lovina (edited 06-02-2001).]