Transfering Autofield & fields over several tables

MS Access 2000 db'er
Hi all,
My name is mark and I am a keen MS Access 2000 db'er,

Q 1) I would like to know how to pass a value from one field to another and to different tables with-in the same db. (hopefully as easy as selecting the right macro).

Q2) Is there a way to pass a partial text field characters (say firs five letters of a persons surname) & hook it onto an autonumber Key Field o another field?

What I am thinking is to put together the same cateloging system which is in place for a corresponding mnual filing system at present.

Example may help -

3 fields Date(short),Surname (l/name_fld, 30 chars) & first name (f/name_fld, 15 chars). I want to produce one single field using characters from l/name_fld (first five characters in a text field) & the first letter in field from the f/name_fld (fist char in a text field).
Here is my theory - passing on values of one field to another - You would have to define them as varible(s)

Is there a simple Macro I could turn to or am I down to SQL/VB (I think it is SQL but unsure. I have a little VB & SQL code knowlede and wish to use it.

I take it so long as the fields are able to take the size (Chracters)& the format is the same (Text) then it should be a matter of declaeing the values of the 2 field as variables (A & B) then concatonating them

Generally you retrieve a recordset with a select sql statement of some form, and build an sql insert or update statement based on the retreived data.