Thanks for your response

it's basically, when i go in to design view for my query
i want to be able to search for more than approx 25 cases at a time
each case id is 11 digits long, so i put in to the criteria section of the query
"12345678912" or "12345678913 or" etc

what i want to be able to do is paste the whole list of case id's that i have, in to the query instead of having to do multiple queries

i will look at your links posts rob,

Thanks again
Mitch