I suspect that somewhere somehow you've already put zls in the data (before or after the value) before you get to this point. To test that, I would probably set the property to allow zls, do the trims and then create a query that searches these problem fields with "" as criteria (any records returned will be those where the field contains zls). If I knew how to search for zls and data in the same field I would have suggested that instead. What I don't get is why you're doing that in the code you show, unless you don't want leading spaces, which I suppose Access will allow. However, IIRC it won't allow trailing spaces anyway, so there ought to be no need to trim those if that's the intent.
Last edited by Micron; 03-08-2020 at 08:17 PM.
Reason: clarification
The more we hear silence, the more we begin to think about our value in this universe.
Paraphrase of Professor Brian Cox.