Missing text...

[vanillapod]

Hi, I have a report that when used misses off some of the text from one of the fields. The field is a memo field and can often contain a lot of text the query shows all text but the report just seems to miss off some words and then go and print the next record.... wierd... any ideas?

 

[jiqjaq]

If you're missing words at the end, try changing the CanGrow property of the textbox on the report to True.

 

[vanillapod]

Cheers for the response jiqjaq but it already is. Thats kinda whats happening though, as if 'can grow' were turned off although sometimes it cuts off even half a word half way through a sentence... example:

'Human resources will advise the employees line mana'

where mana is half way along a line in the report and should say manager.

Wierd.

 

[annsolomon]

Open your report in design view and make sure your memo field isn't overlapping some other field. That would prevent the can grow property from working correctly. Ann

 

[vanillapod]

annsolomon, tried it, didn't work! DOH! Oh man this is getting to be a right pain in the....

 

[annsolomon]

vanillapod, if you'd like another pair of eyes to take a look at it, you could email your report to me at ann@bionetics.com
Ann

 

[mwatrous]

Also make sure your section (detail?) is set to Can Grow.

 

[vanillapod]

annsolomon, cheers for the offer, I've got around the problem by adding in another query b4 the report. It pulls out the field text called 'identified' that is having the problems on the report and then matches it with the other fields for the report from another query, seems to work fine now....

Its really strange, it was a problem with the query but I have no idea what!!

Cheers again

 

[annsolomon]

vanillapod, glad it's working for you now but don't ya hate it when you don't know why? Hee! Hee! Ann

 

[vanillapod]

Hi, I'm having the same problem again, does anyone know how to stop this happening? My previous sloution of just creating another query isn't working this time!

Cheers

 

[CosmoKramer]

Make sure there is no formatting (i.e. >) applied to that textbox. That will cause memo fields to display truncated....

 

[vanillapod]

CosmoKramer, cheers for the response but there isn't any formatting on the field. After having a closer look I've found that one of the queries the report is based on isn't retieving all of the text in the field.

I've tried creating a new query to do the same thing but that hasn't worked. Also tried copying the entire dbase into a new dbase in case it was corrupt but that hasn't happened either.

If I have a new query with just the one field that is causing the problem in it (called 'identified') the entire text is displayed but as soon as I add any other fields it messes up again....

Any other ideas?

 

[vanillapod]

Can any body help anymore with this? Its still happening and my users are gonna get violent soon!

 

[Aubs010]

I've just created a table.
2 columns:

| Numbers | Text          |
|---------|---------------|
|    1    | LOTS OF TEXT! |
|    2    | <blank>       |

(LOTS OF TEXT is a hell of a lot!)

In a report, I have the following TextBoxes:

Name:    Text_Item
Control: Text

Name:    Length_Item
Control: =Len([Text])

I cann't get it to replicate your problem!!!!

The length_Item returns 10098 (that's the number of characters in the memo field) and it seems to be returning them all properly!

I even exported to word and deleted all but the text and the word count there is 10050 (I presume I've deleted a few spaces by accident...)

Aubs

 

[vanillapod]

Cheers for the response Aubs010. I can't see why this is happening and I can't replicate it on a copy of the DB i have on my home PC.

An example of whats happening is below...

the memo field in the table contains:

"Budget meetings are held monthly between the majority of the budget holders and a member of the Management Accounts staff to discuss the budget position.
Management Account officers are available at any time to discuss queries.
Directorate Accountants attend their respective Directorate Finance meetings."

However any select query getting using that filed only retrieves the following text:

"Budget meetings are held monthly between the majority of the budget holders and a member of the Management Accounts staff to discuss the budget position.
Management Account officers are available at any time to discuss queries.
Directorate Accountants a"

Unless anyone can help out I think I'll have to revert the live db in our office to the older version that I have on my home PC and try to remember what updates had been done to it as the backups all contain the error.

 

[Aubs010]

Have you looked at the SQL for the select query?

It may have something like LEFT to get only the x number of left characters... Check to see if, when you change the text, the number of characters returned by the query is the same (characters inclusing spaces)

This is the first set of text and it cuts off just about here and doesn't show the rest

My name is Aubs and I live in the UK. I like crisps. I also like chips

In the examples above, the same number of characters are being returned...


Also, if you don't use the query, and reference the table column, does it still break off the end of the memo field?

Aubs

 

[crogookah]

I have had the same problem in which the end of memo fields are being missed off in a query.

I finally found the problem to be related to qrouping. Apparently it seems that if you use grouping in the query the field becomes a Text field.

The way i solved the problem was to change the query/add another query so that grouping was not required.

 

[DrStephen]

[blue]I'm having the same problem as vanillapod...

A memo field in a report is truncated at 255 characters. If I remove the 'Group By' in the query, the full text is listed in the report...but...I'm getting duplicate records.

If I keep the grouping out of the query, how do I end up with a non-duplicated set of records for the report?

 

[softnerd]

I was having the same problem with a subreport. I couldn't figure it out so I re-created the subreport with the same characteristics and it works now. I'm not sure why, but I suspect it was just Access being its usual, highly unstable and corruptable self.

 

[softnerd]

Oops. I lied. I had left a join out of the query. When I added it and some criteria I was missing the text got cut off again.

My report is of exam questions and responses, so I worked around the problem by including the QuestionID (long integer PK) field in the query and setting the ControlSource of the textbox to:

=DLookup("QuestionText","Questions",("QuestionID = " & [QuestionID]))

So now the report looks up the value for the field when it formats the page. Not the most efficient way to do it, but it works. Microsoft doesn't have any record of this problem in the Knowledge Base. It seems like there is some kind of a limiter in the Jet engine that truncates memo fields to 255 characters when a query reaches a certain level of complexity(?).

Oh well. I don't have time to find a real justification right now so I hope the DLookup idea helps!