I want to create a query and exclude fields which contain a certain string however I cant get this to work. I have tried NOT "Against" , NOT LIKE "Against" , <>"Against" ( "Against" being the relavent string) but all with the same result ie the datasheet view returns no records desipte there being only around 10 of 300 records which have the relavent field set to "Against". When I use the positive version ie LIKE or = it works fine. Any ideas what I am doing wrong ?