Al has a good idea and bypasses the need for a macro. You don't need to
edit the text either. Just use the replace command and enter "The " in
the find field and leave the replace field blank. This will look for the
first word in the entry (not " the ") and looks for a space after it.
Unless you specify to match case, this will take care of "the" in caps
or otherwise.

Peter
------------------
The NoSpin Group
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-----Original Message-----
Mick,

Until someone offers a better way, this will do what you want, but it
will be tedious.

Go through your collection and put brackets around the "the" only in the
titles that begin with "the". Don't put brackets around 'the' if it's
anywhere other than the beginning of the title. Then click 'Edit /
Replace'. In the 'Find what:' box, type (the) with the brackets,

Al Thompson

----- Original Message -----
> In the first column I have the artists names. Many of these begin with

> the word 'the' and I would like to remove it but keep the word 'the'
> if it appears mid sentence.

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