Restricting number of characters

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martin

Is it possible to restrict the number of characters that can be typed into a
Word document? I want to do this so that users can copy / paste into a
database field without exceeding the validated number of characters?
 
Hi Martin,
Is it possible to restrict the number of characters that can be typed into a
Word document? I want to do this so that users can copy / paste into a
database field without exceeding the validated number of characters?
Click to expand...
Hmmm, most database programs I'm familiar with would simply cut off the
superfluous characters...

There's nothing built into Word that will let you do this exactly as you
describe. What you might be able to use depends on exactly how you need to
work, and whether you want only plain text, or also formatting and other
stuff, to transfer to the data base field?

You might take a look at using a textbox from the FORMS toolbar, for example,
because you can set this to an upper limit. The only other thought that comes
to mind would be to use a macro for the copying that would check the number of
characters before proceeding (and give you a warning?)

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep 30 2003)
http://www.mvps.org/word

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or
reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-)
 
Hello Cindy and Bruce

Thanks for the advice re- FORMS, this is just what I need to do. Users will
see if their text is too long befor they copy / paste into the dtabase. As
to why not input directly into the database, some users will do this whereas
others will work offsite to write comments to be input into the database at
a later date, so I need to restrict the amount of text they can write
otherwise it could exceed the amount of space allowed on the printing layout
(I'm using Filemaker on PC and Mac platforms). Most of the users are not
very computer savvy, so I don't want them to have to check the amount of
text themselves - just to be safe!

Thanks again, I'll follow your advice re - Forms.

Martin
 
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