Removing Imbedded spaces and special characters

[William Carl]

I have a name field 28 positions long. Some names are without special characters or spaces --- such as smith, others have spaces and special characters such as St Casimirs or O'neil.
when I use the =left([lastname]),4 --- smith appears as smit which is acceptable however St Casimirs or O'neil appears as St C or O'ne --- how do I remove the spaces and specials characters.

 

[llkhoutx]

Take a look at the instr and mid functions in the help menu. They are what you need.