Merging columns

[Ben McCall]

Is there any way to merge the contents of three columns in to one column.
Title First Name Last Name
Mr. & Mrs. Ben McCall

to give:

Name
Mr. & Mrs. Ben McCall

Ben McCall

 

[Rich]

=[Title]& " " &[FirstName]& " " &[LastName]

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I am going to assume this is for a form or report.

The [Full Name] control on this object should be unbound. The [Title], [First Name], and [Last Name] controls should be bound to your recordset.

In VBA, probably in the Form_Current event code, add

[Full Name] = [Title] & [First Name] & [Last Name]

optionally, if your data quality is uncertain, instead use

[Full Name] = Trim$( Trim$(NZ([Title],"")) & " " & Trim$(NZ([First Name],"")) & " " & Trim$(NZ([Last Name],"")))

The latter is when you really don't trust ANYTHING in your database. Since you describe your problem in a vacuum, you don't indicate the data quality so I can't make assumptions about that.

 

[Ben McCall]

I am not interested in a form or a report. All I want to do is merge three fields into one field in the table and then delete the three original fields.

Thanks!

Ben McCall

 

[Pat Hartman]

Bad move. Keep the fields separate and combine them as necessary for reporting. If you don't understand why combining the fields into a single field is poor practice, you need to do some reading on relational database design.
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q288/9/49.ASP

 

[Ben McCall]

I understand the importance of separate fields but I have a specific need to combine several fields to meet the requirements of a merge fax program. I can combine fields in a copy and keep the original "pure".

Thanks!

Ben McCall

 

[Rich]

You don't need to store the values or create another table for them just use a query to return them.
HTH