How does Best Fit choose a field width?

[hagamablabla]

Whenever I try to autosize a field, Access only looks at the length of the objects currently on screen and adjusts the field width to the longest one on screen. If I try to use Best Fit, however, it seems to pick an arbitrary width that still does not show everything for all records. How and why is it picking this width? Also, if the Best Fit doesn't provide any benefits over autofitting to the longest value in the entire field, how do I adjust the field to the that longest value?

[orange]

You could try - find the longest value for the field and set the field size.

[hagamablabla]

Is there no alternative? This seems like it would be an obvious thing.

[Micron]

We're talking about a form in datasheet view? I'd say you answered your own question from the first post - choosing best fit or double clicking on the column border will auto size to the widest value on screen. When you think about it, it's not necessarily a bad thing. For example, if you had a thousand records on the form and only intended to scroll through 50 or so, why would you want the width to be based on ones you can't and maybe won't see, especially if this means you'll now end up scrolling left & right through columns that are wider than they need to be? Then again, if we're talking about a table, it shouldn't be a concern at all.

If a static width value isn't the way you want to go, you'd have to get the length of each field based on the records returned, which I'd probably do as calculated query fields. But a lot of bother for very little return, methinks.

[CJ_London]

if you want the code, you can use Stephen Lebans code here

http://www.lebans.com/autocolumnwidth.htm