Hi Russ,

I am using the File-->Append/Merge command. I had already reverted to a backup when I saw your note, so I took special note of what happened the next time I attempted the merge, and you were right. The duplicates were in fact from both files. Essentially, the system appended all records from the incoming file, and performed no merging. I used to get a message asking whether I wanted to just append, or append and merge. Now it justs goes ahead and appends, and then the program stops responding. BUT, it appears to complete the appending as my new file has exactly the the total of my file and my incoming file (1002 +1203 = 2205).

So, although the operation appears to complete, I am baffled by why it `hangs`. I have since tried to merge the duplicates, it appears to work but I`ll post separately on some issues that I`m having there.

I still may go back to my pre-merge backup and start over.

Paul