OnOpen filter to fields not on my query

[Tim]

Not sure if this is a query question, or related to how I code my on
open statement. I use some on open all the time to filter though...

This simple query below with 'Select DISTINCT' shows me 1 contact,
regardless of how many times a contact matches to any of the multiple
fields and criteria in the WHERE. I can not show the fields from the
Left Joined tables or I'll get multiple contacts. That's ok though.

The problem I'm having is that I want to leave the criteria of the
fields in the Left Joined tables blank so that I can specify it as
part of a Filter String created in code attached to the On Open event
of a report.
If I leave the criteria blank, then these fields from the Left Joined
tables don't stay as part of my query fields because they aren't
shown, and have no criteria to make them useful. So when I run my
report, it fails because it doesn't find the fields in the query.

That's a lot harder to say than to see.
Anyone have a solution to this? Seems like it should be simple.

SELECT DISTINCT dbo_CustomerContact.Contact_Name
FROM ((dbo_CustomerContact LEFT JOIN dbo_ContactSoftware ON
dbo_CustomerContact.CustomerContact_ID =
dbo_ContactSoftware.CustomerContact_ID) LEFT JOIN
dbo_ContactSpecialList ON dbo_CustomerContact.CustomerContact_ID =
dbo_ContactSpecialList.CustomerContact_ID) LEFT JOIN
dbo_CustomerContactCategory ON dbo_CustomerContact.CustomerContact_ID
= dbo_CustomerContactCategory.CustomerContact_ID
WHERE (((dbo_CustomerContactCategory.Category_ID)=1 Or
(dbo_CustomerContactCategory.Category_ID)=2 Or
(dbo_CustomerContactCategory.Category_ID)=3) AND
((dbo_ContactSpecialList.List_ID)=1) AND
((dbo_ContactSoftware.Software_ID)=1 Or
(dbo_ContactSoftware.Software_ID)=2));