Print the first few characters of a value as a group header in a report or data access page

1. Open the report in Design view, or the data access page in Design view.
   
   
2. Click Sorting And Grouping on the toolbar, and make sure that the properties in the Sorting And Grouping box are set as follows:

   Property		Setting	Applies to
   Field/Expression		(Select a field or type an expression)	Reports
   GroupRecordSource		(Set when you click Promote or Group By Table on the toolbar)	Data access pages
   GroupHeader		Yes	Reports, pages
   GroupFooter		Yes or No	Reports, pages
   GroupOn		Prefix Characters	Reports, pages
   GroupInterval		(Type the number of characters)	Reports, pages
   KeepTogether		(Select an option)	Reports
   DefaultSort		(Type the name(s) of the field(s) you want to sort on.)	Data access pages

3. Add a calculated text box to the group header.

   Note   On a data access page, you can use a bound HTML control instead of a text box.

4. To display the property sheet, make sure that the text box or bound HTML control is selected, and then click Properties on the toolbar.
   
   
5. In the ControlSource property box, type the expression (by using the Left or Right function) that will extract the appropriate characters.

   For example, if you're tracking office equipment and furniture, and the asset number includes an alphabetic code for distinguishing one type of asset from another (for example, FR100 for furniture), you could use an expression similar to the ones in the following table.

   This expression	Returns
   =Left([AssetCode], 2)	FR
   =Right([AssetCode], 3)	100

   
   

   Tip   In a form or report in a Microsoft Access database (.mdb), you can click the Build button to use the Expression Builder to create the expression.

Notes  

• For more information on creating expressions in a Microsoft Access database (.mdb), click .
  
  
• For more information on creating expression in a Microsoft Access project (.adp), click .
  
  
• For more information on the Left function, click .
  
  
• For more information on the Right function, click .
  
  
• The Alphabetical List of Products report in the Northwind sample database has an example of printing the first letter of each group of products in the group header. To view this report, open the Northwind database in the Samples subfolder of your Office folder, and then open the Alphabetical List of Products report in Design view. For information on opening Northwind, click .