Changing Field Lengths

[Laurie]

I get the following error message: "Microsoft Access
Can't Change the Data Type, There isn't enough disk space
or memory" when I try to change a text(255) field to text
(25). Since there are types of data imports where you
can not limit the field size upon import, you must go in
after the fact and reduce the size of the fields from the
default text(255). I have to do this often on different
data sets but always get this error.
I have plenty of disk space (6.7 GB free) and memory (512
RAM). The table has only 122,000 records.
My workaround (ugh) is to create a new field -text(25)
then writing an update query to copy data from the text
(255) field to the text(25) field.
HELP!

 

[John Nurick]

Hi Laurie,

Don't let it worry you: your work-round is what Access itself has to do
whenever you change a field type.

 

[John Vinson]

I get the following error message: "Microsoft Access
Can't Change the Data Type, There isn't enough disk space
or memory" when I try to change a text(255) field to text
(25). Since there are types of data imports where you
can not limit the field size upon import, you must go in
after the fact and reduce the size of the fields from the
default text(255). I have to do this often on different
data sets but always get this error.
I have plenty of disk space (6.7 GB free) and memory (512
RAM). The table has only 122,000 records.
My workaround (ugh) is to create a new field -text(25)
then writing an update query to copy data from the text
(255) field to the text(25) field.
HELP!

Rather than Importing the data (and letting Access define the field
lengths for you), you may want to create an empty table with the
desired field lengths; then Link to the external data source and run
an Append query to move the data into the preconstructed table.