Thanks, knowing that really helps, and nice explanation too! I would give both of you positive post ratings, but either I don't know how or it won't let me because I have too few posts.

I can't find any mention of a Zeros( command, so for now I'm just sticking with Data(, but correctly initializing does seem to have fixed the problem.

On another note, is there any good way to convert a number to a character? Like 1 to '1'?

EDIT:

Also, I seem to be having a weird issue where text I print before or after printing a string prints both at the given coordinates and at the end of the string. (Picture attached)

Text(2,20,Str1)
Text(2,40,"HELLO!")

So I've been puzzling over a strange issues with strings and text lately, where all my efforts to print information to the home and graph screens resulted in a bunch of gobbledy-gook (long amounts of +'s, n's, and 0's). After thinking I was coding something wrong I eventually tried doing the same thing before all of the other code, resulting in perfect text. Just wondering if anyone could shed some light on this? (I'm using TokenIDE so DeltaList = Data)

.MATRIX

Fix 5

//Initial try, works fine
Text(10,10,"FFFFF")

Repeat getKey(15)
DispGraph
End

DeltaList(0->GDB1

For(Y,0,7)
For(X,0,7)
1->{Y*8+X+GDB1}
End
End

"!"->Str1

For(P,0,15)
({4*P+GDB1}*8)+({4*P+1+GDB1}*4)+({4*P+2+GDB1}*2)+{4*P+3+GDB1}->N
"F"->{Str1+P}
End

//Second try, plus trying to figure out if I used the string right
Text(10,10,"FFFFF")
Text(10,20,Str1)

Repeat getKey(15)
DispGraph
End

Fix 4

I do appreciate all of the suggestions, but I have decided to stick with the small spaces, and add an inconspicuous pixel under text on the start menu. It checks to see if it's there, and if not, it shows an error screen which explains that the user needs to open and close the table and restart the program. 

I think it would be better using Pt-Off(X,Y,2), if it were a cross then I wouldn't be able to get corners without overlapping.

Is it possible to read the flag? I don't really know anything about how that system works...

I'll try that, but I'm curious as to whether Pxl-Off( would be faster than lines. Logic suggest to me that it would be both slower and larger, but am I incorrect?

So I've found that the Text( command spaces are excellent for erasing sprites, but on some people's calculators it seems to erase one pixel below the space as well.

The TI-Basic Developer wiki says this:

"On the TI-84+ and TI-84+ SE, the Text( command may also erase a single row of pixels underneath the text: whether this occurs or not depends on whether it was the menu screen or the table that was visited last, of the two."

This is very vague to me, and I don't understand what "the menu" refers to, since it clearly isn't the homescreen. Anyone have insight?