Importing and viewing book-length text in Long Text field?

[kent]

I'm planning a data analysis project that will involve several books whose text I want to import into an Access database, but I have some questions / issues.

Microsoft's specification on Long Field says that it can store "Up to about 1 gigabyte (GB), but controls to display a long text are limited to the first 64,000 characters."

I tried to paste text from a text document into an Access long text box, but in Table view it seems that it only imported no more than ~64,000 characters, even though the source document is much larger.

If I had a text file of a book's text, what would be the best way to import it? Also, is there any way to view the complete text within Access? Is there a setting I can change on a Form field? Or would I need to use VBA to create a tool to access the entire text field?

[orange]

Just curious, but it seems you have focused on Access to do data analysis of text. What exactly do you want to analyze? What sort of output/product(s) re expected? There may be text-oriented applications more suited to your requirement.
Access has a limit ~2GB, but you could use Access as front end to SQL Server express(free).

[kent]

Just curious, but it seems you have focused on Access to do data analysis of text. What exactly do you want to analyze? What sort of output/product(s) re expected? There may be text-oriented applications more suited to your requirement.
Access has a limit ~2GB, but you could use Access as front end to SQL Server express(free).

It's going to be text analysis ultimately of a few hundred articles and texts from books. I've looked into Qualitative Data Analysis programs but they don't manipulate the text in ways that I need (I expect that I'll need to implement VBA to create some of the functions). The total file size of all the articles combined won't come anywhere near the 2GB limit. I was hoping to use Access instead of SQL server so I can have all my data in one place that can be easily moved / backed-up.

[orange]

OK so far. Can you give some examples--even if mock up - of the kind of text and the "analytic / manipulations" you intend.
Not trying to be nosy-- just hoping others may offer more focused comments based on experience and context.

I did a google search for free software for text analysis and got this link that may be helpful.

Good luck.

[kent]

OK so far. Can you give some examples--even if mock up - of the kind of text and the "analytic / manipulations" you intend.
Not trying to be nosy-- just hoping others may offer more focused comments based on experience and context.

I did a google search for free software for text analysis and got this link that may be helpful.

Good luck.

I guess I needed to know first off what is the best way to import large texts into single fields, as well as to determine if there is a way within standard Access forms to view the whole contents of the cell and not to be limited by the 64,000 character limit?

[orange]

A little googling found this approximation (not specific to Access) that may be useful to you.

The maximum text length on a text area is 10,000 characters. This is approximately three pages, single spaced in 12 point font, when pasted into Microsoft Word.

• Every word has an average of 6 characters in it. This can help you figure out how many characters you should require if you currently use word limits.
• One page of text is about 3,400 characters.

I think you should tell readers WHAT you want to do in simple terms. I don't think voluminous text processing generally would be a feature of MS Access. Long text fields in Access have their own idiosyncrasies and can be troublesome.

[Mickjav]

I might brake it down into say chapters so you would have something like

Tblbooks
tblbookchapters


That way you might find it more manageable when you start working with the text

Hope it helps mick

[CJ_London]

it seems that it only imported no more than ~64,000 characters,

that is a limitation of the clipboard - it can only hold 64k characters

I guess I needed to know first off what is the best way to import large texts into single fields

this link may point you in the right direction https://www.thespreadsheetguru.com/b...ide-text-files

But agree with other comments - it depends on what you want to do once imported which will determine your method of import - perhaps you need to retain formatting for paragraphs/headings/references etc (in which case text files won't be what you are importing from). Perhaps it would be better to store the data a sentence or a paragraph per record with additional fields to maintain title/order. Perhaps you need some form of index to track certain words or phrases.

[kent]

As a follow up, I was able to get the text into Access by creating a simple XML file with the text document's contents. It was able to import all of the text into a single cell, and I didn't have an issue with the 64,000 character limit. All of the document also showed up in the form as well; it was not truncated. This may not be my final solution, but it's good to know that I have that import option.