[ms-access] Is there an equivalent to the SUBSTRING function in MS Access SQL?

I want to do something like this within an MS Access query, but SUBSTRING is an undefined function.

SELECT DISTINCT SUBSTRING(LastName, 1, 1)
FROM Authors;

I think there is MID() and maybe LEFT() and RIGHT() in Access.

I couldn't find an off-the-shelf module that added this function, so I wrote one:

In Access, go to the Database Tools ribbon, in the Macro area click into Visual Basic. In the top left Project area, right click the name of your file and select Insert -> Module. In the module paste this:

Public Function Substring_Index(strWord As String, strDelim As String, intCount As Integer) As String

Substring_Index = delims

start = 0
test = ""

For i = 1 To intCount
    oldstart = start + 1
    start = InStr(oldstart, strWord, strDelim)
    Substring_Index = Mid(strWord, oldstart, start - oldstart)
Next i

End Function

Save the module as module1 (the default). You can now use statements like:

SELECT Substring_Index([fieldname],",",2) FROM table

I have worked alot with msaccess vba. I think you are looking for MID function

example

    dim myReturn as string
    myreturn = mid("bonjour tout le monde",9,4)

will give you back the value "tout"