Is this a known issue?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Lee
  • Start date Start date
L

Lee

Hi everyone,
Recently I've had problems with a Memo field within a
report that wouldn't display the entire contents of the
record. The bound textbox would only display the first
255 characters of the field but on checking the table,
the records were definitely complete and around 300
characters long.
I tried putting new textboxes in different sections of
the report but still the same problem. It's nothing to
do with the 'can grow' property either as the control and
Sections had the property set to 'Yes' - also, the text
stopped mid-line.
In the end I resorted to replacing the textbox with a
SubReport that just had the Memo field in it. It's fine
now but I'm still puzzled as to why it wouldn't work.
Have you come across this problem before? Have I done
something really dumb?!
Any ideas would be welcome.
Thanks!
Lee
 
Hi Lee
If you're talking about truncation of memo fields being exported to a .rtf file, the problem is documented in Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 288877 (sorry, I misplaced the link). In my case (trip reports in Access 97 - memo fields for discussions, comments and replies), there was no problem if I simply wanted to PRINT the report - it only showed up when I wanted to export it to Word. The problem seems to be triggered by long memo fields (as you discovered), but Microsoft implicates multiple hard returns as well. My solution was to build a Word Mail Merge .dot template and insert a Word macro which retrieved the data I needed from the Access table, not elegant but it works for me. There have been a few work-arounds posted, including your subreport solution (good catch!) - search on "rtf" and "truncation.
I've been looking for fix notices for newer versions of Access - we plan to convert to A2K this summer, and I'm hoping the problem goes away, but it doesn't look promising
A reminder - try to avoid placing "can grow" controls on the the same line with other controls. When the "can grow" field grows, it can mess up up your layout
hc

----- Lee wrote: ----

Hi everyone
Recently I've had problems with a Memo field within a
report that wouldn't display the entire contents of the
record. The bound textbox would only display the first
255 characters of the field but on checking the table,
the records were definitely complete and around 300
characters long
I tried putting new textboxes in different sections of
the report but still the same problem. It's nothing to
do with the 'can grow' property either as the control and
Sections had the property set to 'Yes' - also, the text
stopped mid-line
In the end I resorted to replacing the textbox with a
SubReport that just had the Memo field in it. It's fine
now but I'm still puzzled as to why it wouldn't work
Have you come across this problem before? Have I done
something really dumb?
Any ideas would be welcome
Thanks
Le
 
Thanks very much for your reply hcj.
However, my problem is with a report within Access - it's
not exported to Word or as a rich text file. I do know
that 'can grow' can mess up layout (thanks).
I'll look to see if there are any multiple hard returns
in case that's a trigger but otherwise I don't think this
is the same problem. I use Access 2002 by the way.
Kind Regards,

Linda
-----Original Message-----
Hi Lee,
If you're talking about truncation of memo fields
Click to expand...
being exported to a .rtf file, the problem is documented
in Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 288877 (sorry, I
misplaced the link). In my case (trip reports in Access
97 - memo fields for discussions, comments and replies),
there was no problem if I simply wanted to PRINT the
report - it only showed up when I wanted to export it to
Word. The problem seems to be triggered by long memo
fields (as you discovered), but Microsoft implicates
multiple hard returns as well. My solution was to build
a Word Mail Merge .dot template and insert a Word macro
which retrieved the data I needed from the Access table,
not elegant but it works for me. There have been a few
work-arounds posted, including your subreport solution
(good catch!) - search on "rtf" and "truncation."
I've been looking for fix notices for newer versions
Click to expand...
of Access - we plan to convert to A2K this summer, and
I'm hoping the problem goes away, but it doesn't look
promising!
A reminder - try to avoid placing "can grow" controls
Click to expand...
on the the same line with other controls. When the "can
grow" field grows, it can mess up up your layout.
 
Have tried replicating the problem in A97 - no luck so
far. Can you test for actual versus displayed content by
adding a bound text box with =len([memofieldname])? This
will give you character count of the content. If it equals
the displayed content of a truncated case, then content is
being lost; if it equals the real content from the table,
then you have a display problem. You might also try =
[memofieldname] to see if the full content appears in the
new box.

Another test (you've probably already tried this)- open
the control box in design mode so that it would surely
diplay full content without needing to grow. If you get
truncation, then bigger mystery!

Intriguing problem! Truncation at 255 characters (magic
number) is a major clue; it sounds like your memo is
somehow being converted to a standard text field.

Finally, are there any invisible special or control
characters in the text? This might happen if the text was
cut and pasted into the field from another app like Excel
or Word. You probably know that a memo field exported to
Excel will truncate at 255 characters in the sheet.

Please post when (not if!) you resolve the problem.
Hope some of this provides leads. If the problem doesn't
resolve soon and others don't come to your rescue, I might
ask for a sample of actual data to try, albeit in A97.
hcj
 
Are you using a query as the recordsource for the report? If so, does the query
use Distinct, DistinctRow, or does it use Group By or Max or Min?

Have you applied any formatting to the controls linked to your memo field?

Any of those can cause the memo field to be truncated to 255 characters.
 
...
You probably know that a memo field exported to
Excel will truncate at 255 characters in the sheet.
Click to expand...

Not always true.

To demonstrate (assumes column LongCol in table Blah is 256+
characters):

CREATE TABLE
[Excel 8.0;database=C:\Tempo\db.xls;].[Sheet1$]
(Col1 VARCHAR(35))
;
INSERT INTO
[Excel 8.0;database=C:\Tempo\db.xls;].[Sheet1$]
(Col1)
SELECT LongCol AS Col1 FROM Blah
;

This fails with the error, 'The field is too small to accept the
amount of data you attempted to add.'

CREATE TABLE
[Excel 8.0;database=C:\Tempo\db.xls;].[Sheet1$]
(Col1 MEMO)
;
INSERT INTO
[Excel 8.0;database=C:\Tempo\db.xls;].[Sheet1$]
(Col1)
SELECT LongCol AS Col1 FROM Blah
;

No error and data is inserted without being truncated.

--
 
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