Somehow my field thinks it can only receive numbers. I compared the properties tabs to another field that will receive text, and they're both the same. What am I missing. This field didn't have any data from the orig table to determine whether to format text or numbers. Would greatly appreciate some input

Did you check the Data Type for the field in the table? Is it set to Text?

How do I find the 'data type'. I double clicked on the field in design view and searched the properties tab. Didn't see anything with that heading.

Open the table, in design view, that the form is based on. In the column immediately to the right of the field name is a column called Data Type. Here you will see Text, Yes/No, Number, etc. Be sure this says Text and not Number for the field in question.

I found it! Thanks Jack... That sure helps.