You could use an expression in the SELECT to create another field, e.g. in
Jet SQL, something like

SELECT iif(instr(myfield,'blank',1) = 0, myfield, '') AS 'mynewfield', *
FROM ....

(My syntax probably isn't quite right there)

Peter Jamieson
wrote in message
oups.com...
I looked at doing it in the select but this will delete the records
having the word 'blank'. I'm not sure how to say that I want to keep
the record but clear the field for this merge. Any thoughts?