Hi James -
Based on the others responses, I may not have a correct understanding of what it is that you are trying to do, but you might try the following:
1. Create, or insert, a text object into your report.
2. Then right-click on the text object and select "Edit Text Object"
3. Insert (drag & drop) the fields that you want to concatenate.
As a test I created a text object containing the following:
Text Label + String + Text Label + Date + Text Label + Number (see below)
Customer: {CustomerName} was created on: {DateCreated} with ID#: {CustomerID}
The text object displayed everything correctly, and all of the parts are fully formatable, so you can format the Name, Date and Number any way that you want them.
Is this what you wanted to do?
Regards,