I'm trying to select the two left characters of a string (a date 12/08/08). Help under Left Function says to use "Left(string,length)". When I enter Left into the code, a "definition" line comes up which says "Left() as integer Gets or sets the distance, in pixels, between the left edge of the control . . ." How do I get the function which returns the left number of characters in a string? When I type in Left(Fd(i,8),2), Left gets a squiggly blue underline and the message "Public property Left() has no parameters and its return type cannot be indexed", which I think means its looking to return a distance. Right gets the same warning. The Mid function doesn't show any warnings, although I haven't tried the code. What am I missing? Thanks