Character limit in form field

[tanveerksingh]

Hi everyone,

I have created a form in Access 2003. One of the fields titled "Description" typically will have more than one line of information entered into it. Right now, there appears to be a character limit. It does not allow me to enter any information beyond just one line. Is there any way to extend the character limit of this field, or even better, make it unlimited?



Thanks!

[Missinglinq]

Go into Table Design View and select the Field, then set the Field Size to the maximum, 255 characters. If you need a Field to hold more than 255 characters you need to change the Field's Datatype to Memo field, which can hold in excess of 64K. If a database is set up properly, text fields seldom need to be more than 255 characters long. One of the Cardinal rules to having a well designed, normalized database is that no single field will contain more than one individual piece of data. Data stored in Memo fields should be restricted to "notes" or narrative type information, such as a salesman's notes on a customer visit or a doctor's progress notes on a patient.

Working primarily in a Heath Care environment, I've used Memo fields extensively for a number of years, without ever having a problem. The secret is to follow one single rule:

Never, never, never place data in a Memo field if there any possibility that you will ever need to search, sort, parse or in any other way manipulate the data!

Because many queries perform some of these functions, you have to take care in using them in queries or they will be truncated to 255 characters. . Allen Browne has some excellent advice explaining how to deal with Memo Fields and Queries:

http://allenbrowne.com/ser-63.html

Linq ;0)>

[tanveerksingh]

Thank you!!

[Missinglinq]

Glad we could help!

Linq ;0)>