I have just completed a transcription which has an entry from a hand-written record at the bottom of the page that did not contain a District although it did have a page number. I am using Win BMD. I interpreted the instructions in the Beginner's page to say that a "?" is used when a column is completely missing. However, Free BMD will not accept the "defective" file. In my few years of transcribing I have usually found ways to get around such problems; however, this one has been baffled. I have also tried using the comma after "?" as well as underscores and the asterisk with and without commas. Help please Carol Haycock (609)