Add another column to your datatable (I would do this in the select statement) and calculate the short name. In your datagrid do not bind the full name field (or hide it by setting the width to 0) Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH

create table #table (affected item varchar, LN int, NY int, Zu int) insert(table) select Affected item,SUM( case region when 'LN" then 1 else 0) LN,SUM( case region when "NY" then 1 else 0) NY,SUM( case region when 'ZU" then 1 else 0) ZU from tablename groupby affected item please advice if i am wrong? Thanks, Abhishek