Eliminating square boxes in a text field

  • Thread starter Thread starter Haji
  • Start date Start date
H

Haji

Hi,

I copied and pasted data from a Word document into a
field called Symptoms. The data in word was in the form
of bullets with a few spaces and then the text. The
spaces between the bullet and the text are automatically
generated my Word. The problem is that when I create a
report that hast he Symptoms field in it, a small square
box appears between the bullets and the text. I want to
keep the bullets but I want to get rid of the boxes. I
would do a replace to get rid of them but don't know how
to type in the symbol for the box. I would prefer a
space between the bullet and the box but can live with
nothing as long as I can get rid of the boxes.

Is there someone that can provid help.

Thank You.

Haji
 
Haji said:
I copied and pasted data from a Word document into a
field called Symptoms. The data in word was in the form
of bullets with a few spaces and then the text. The
spaces between the bullet and the text are automatically
generated my Word. The problem is that when I create a
report that hast he Symptoms field in it, a small square
box appears between the bullets and the text. I want to
keep the bullets but I want to get rid of the boxes. I
would do a replace to get rid of them but don't know how
to type in the symbol for the box. I would prefer a
space between the bullet and the box but can live with
nothing as long as I can get rid of the boxes.
Click to expand...


Kind of a pain to analyze these things, but what else is
there to do ;-)

The way I go about determining the ascii code for the
undisplayable characters is to open a recordset to a record
that has the funky characters, then loop through the field's
text string looking for characters with a code less than 32:

For k = 1 to Len(rs!Symptoms)
If Asc(Mid(rs!Symptoms, k, 1)) < 32 Then
Debug.Print k, Asc(Mid(rs!Symptoms, k, 1))
End If
Next k

Now you can look at the Immediate/Debug Window and see
where/what those things are.

Once you've determined the codes for the funky chars
(probably a Tab, char code 09), you can then use the Replace
function to change them to something else. For example, you
can change the Tab character to 3 spaces this way:

Replace(Symptoms, Chr(09), " ")
 
Haji said:
Hi,

I copied and pasted data from a Word document into a
field called Symptoms. The data in word was in the form
of bullets with a few spaces and then the text. The
spaces between the bullet and the text are automatically
generated my Word. The problem is that when I create a
report that hast he Symptoms field in it, a small square
box appears between the bullets and the text. I want to
keep the bullets but I want to get rid of the boxes. I
would do a replace to get rid of them but don't know how
to type in the symbol for the box. I would prefer a
space between the bullet and the box but can live with
nothing as long as I can get rid of the boxes.

Is there someone that can provid help.

Thank You.

Haji
Click to expand...
 
I have this problem with white boxes too. They seem to be there in place of
the caret or a symbol that separates paragraphs like *
All of a sudden they began. I wonder if I changed something to cause that?
I can 'copy and paste' the message and 'clean it' with 'eCleaner' and it
takes it away temporarily. Hope someone can help.
IrisMae40
 
Haji...I am new to this posting 'stuff' and I think I may have changed
something by mistake...so check your Display Name... looks like it has
changed to mine!......sorry
Iris
 
IrisMae40 said:
I have this problem with white boxes too. They seem to be there in place of
the caret or a symbol that separates paragraphs like *
All of a sudden they began. I wonder if I changed something to cause that?
I can 'copy and paste' the message and 'clean it' with 'eCleaner' and it
takes it away temporarily. Hope someone can help.
IrisMae40
Click to expand...


All those Word formatting codes are beyond Access's ken.
You would be better served by asking Word to save the
paragraph in a Text file rather than using Copy/Paste
directly from the .DOC.

OTOH, if you really have to maintain the formatting in word,
then, since you can not use an Access text box to display
the paragraph, you should explore using an RTF control. Not
necessesarily easy but if you have to, it may be your best
bet. (see RTF2 at www.lebans.com)

OTOOH, in the case of Haji's situation (which I can not see
except in your reply), the box between the bullet and text
is most likely a Tab character. If that's correct, he can
simply replace it with a few spaces by using:
Replace(thefield, Chr(9), " ")
either in a query or in a text box expression.
 
I am referring to the white boxes that appear in the place of other things
like the @ in an eMail address, the < sign that comes at the beginning of a
line in a forward.., or when a repeated ********** makes a line to separate
subjects or paragraphs. I tried to explain this in earlier posts today.
 
Sorry, I have no idea where those could be coming from.

If it's from a Word document, then look at my previous post.

If it's coming from something else, then I can't even guess
what's going on. You did say it just started, right? If
so, try to find out what might have changed since then and
if a change is the cause. I suppose I could guess that
maybe you're using a font in the text box that doesn't
contain those characters, but most likely they're some kind
of formatting codes used by whatever program originated the
text?
 
Thanks for your help...I will check out recent changes and try thst route.
It's no real problem...just aggravating not to be able to solve it.
Iris

Marshall Barton said:
Sorry, I have no idea where those could be coming from.

If it's from a Word document, then look at my previous post.

If it's coming from something else, then I can't even guess
what's going on. You did say it just started, right? If
so, try to find out what might have changed since then and
if a change is the cause. I suppose I could guess that
maybe you're using a font in the text box that doesn't
contain those characters, but most likely they're some kind
of formatting codes used by whatever program originated the
text?
--
Marsh
MVP [MS Access]


I am referring to the white boxes that appear in the place of other things
like the @ in an eMail address, the < sign that comes at the beginning of a
line in a forward.., or when a repeated ********** makes a line to separate
subjects or paragraphs. I tried to explain this in earlier posts today.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
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