I'll try that, thx

Thanks Jack, that works great. I would have been here all week working that one out (if at all).

Simon, had not thought about storing in a table. Good...

AAAAH 😀 Thanks, now it works

I figured it out. ntext does not work well in SQL2005. I had to convert to nvarchar. Works fine now.

Did that, that is how I got the error:

The ntext data type cannot be selected as DISTINCT because it is not comparable.

thanks all, I did set the last row as a high number.  In checking with the user I found this file would probably never have more than 5000 rows.  Great info...

Thanks, that really helped.  A very clear directive.  I understand much better

Thanks, I'll give it a try.  Still new a a lot of this so I may be back with ???

The tables are inherited so I can't claim them.  I just need to use and update what is there.

The VENDOR table is a reference table.    The user interactively adds a...

Thanks guys, I had to changed  my package from the mapped drive to the UNC path, once I did that, the job executed fine.  

Manually from Enterprise Manager on my PC.  The file path is on the network server.