hi SerranoG,
Thanks for your reply.
I have to put it backwords because in the default value in the property of that textbox I set it as "=GetNextNum()" and then I save the newly generated document number in [DocNo] from "receive" table. (which means i set the control source to DocNo from "receive" table)
I notice that when i save it, the DocNo is look like "A00001"
when the sql reselect the DocNo again for the next new number it will get "A00001" as the DocNo in DMax,
so is it the "A" and "00001" cannot put together as the DMax will only able to add the numbers only but not include the "A"?
i try to declare all as variant but wont works.
any way to solve this problem?
thanks a lot ...

hi friend
  all thru discussion u have got a method to generate a auto genration of strings method
  but then hw wud to adjust that number when it comes to value 10
  wud it be A000010 or A00010 ???


the simple principle to generate auto ids is

first take max id using select statement
then use substr function take all numbers from 2nd position for the id
convert it then to integer(since it will be in string)
then add one to it and store in a numberis variable say t1
now find number of digits in that numberic value t1
then subtract it from 5 since u have five 0's n store it in numberic variable t2
now atlast in temp_str string variable concat first letter A and then use some replicate function for zeros(here use t2 variable for number of times the 0's has to be repeated) atlast add that t1 variable to generate actual auto generated string value

hope it helps

hi savi317,
Thanks for your reply.
For yr question, it would be A00010.
Basically i know what are you talking about in that principle. I am a new learner of access so I still dont know what I have to do with all those VBA codings. Anyway i will try to think about it. Thank you very much for yr suggestion.

Cheers

I would say that it is a bad idea to use an autonumber field for any actual data.
The autonumber should be used only for automatically uniquely identifying a particular record to the machine itself.
To uniquely [u]name</u> a record (including serializing that record) you should write code to generate that unique “name” yourself, following whatever business rules you build in.
In this way, you can format it according to your desires, you can delete a record without having a resultant gap in your numbering (if you so desire), and so on.
The autonumber should not be used as data that humans are going to interact with.