How to get around the 50 character rule of a lookup wizard?

[ayupchap]

Hi all,

I know this is odd but I need to somehow create a way of making a dropdown list with more than 50 characters. One has 250. There are 3 options to choose from and only one needed to be selected. Anyone know a way around this or another fix I do'nt know about.

I am happy to just type a 1, 2 or 3 in the box IF it can be referenced somehow to one of the 3 longer statements that I need to use but I have no idea how to do this.

Any help much appreciated

[orange]

How about telling us more about the need of a 250 char field? Perhaps an example.

[June7]

A listbox and combobox RowSource columns will truncate. Period. I thought the limit was 255 characters.

If you need to see the full descriptor, maybe include the lookup table in the form RecordSource (don't user INNER JOIN). Then the related info will be available. Bind textbox to the descriptor field. Set as Locked Yes and TabStop No.

[ayupchap]

Thanks for your replies

Orange, I work in a school and as its coming to the end of the year a decision needs to be made as to whether a student must repeat the year again or not. Basically I have been asked to create a drop-down list whereby one of three options can be selected and these are then printed out in a student report and posted home. The teacher selects which ever of the three options is appropriate, these are:

1. Student is promoted to the next grade.
   
2. Student is required to successfully complete summer school in order to be considered for promotion. We will be monitoring attendance over the summer. When your child returns to school, we will consider retention if they have not continued to make progress over the summer.
   
3. Your child is being retained in the current grade for the 2014-2015 school year. We will be sending a letter in August about information for an assessment and to review summer school progress.

June7, thanksso much for your help. I seem to find a 50 char limit when creating the drop-down within the wizard in the table design section, is there anyway around this as I can totally fit the char length within the 250 limit with a slight change to some of the text but obviously not 50. Failing this your approach as a workaround sounds great but I am a little unclear as to how to do this. Am I right in thinking this? I create a form and using text boxes write each of the text options. Somehow link this to the appropriate table. Link a field to each option? I have never done anything like that before so its a bit above me.

Really appreciate your help everyone.

[hapm]

How about introducing a new table "promote decisions" containing a primary key + 2 fields: "short description" and "report text". Adding a foreign key to your basetable that has a reference to the new table, and using the short description field for the drop down, while using the "report text" in the report would do the trick. It would be easily extendable, and you wouldn't save the text over and over again. Works fine for me in such cases.

[orange]

I agree with hapm's approach. You may not need a new table, but a design similar where you have
---a PK
---short name ( eg. Promoted, Conditional Promotion -summer school-,Retained)
---report text (eg your full text info)

Good luck

[ayupchap]

This is great thanks so much. I will get back to you on how it goes once I have made it.

[June7]

I NEVER set lookups in table, especially when an alias is involved, review http://access.mvps.org/access/lookupfields.htm

The approach of a short name is a good idea but if you still want to see the long version (even more than 255 characters) consider my suggestion in conjunction with the combobox showing short name.

If you have a table of these 3 options, include the table in the form RecordSource (do not use INNER JOIN). And as previously described, the related info from the Options table will be available.

[orange]

I was not suggesting lookups at table field level.[Don't do that]
You would have a table with 3 fields - a PK which is hidden from user, a short name which user can select and the longer text which is used for reporting. I think it is similar to June7's response.