Shrink the Text

[Rookie Access User]

I often come across situations where the text and text box sizes are
optimized to display all the needed information in a single row of text boxes
for each record while providing readability for 99% of the data but a few
longer strings become truncatated. How can I set Access to automatically
shrink longer than normal strings to fit the text box?

I don't want to sacrifice readabiltiy for all the records by decrease the
text size. I often can't increase the width of the text box because there is
no room left. I don't want to resort to increasing the text box size to
allow more lines of text for one or two records becuase it is a waste of
space and often looks bad and sometimes the abnormally long string is a
longer single word such as Smithendozenhinger instead of Smith. In Excel you
can shrink the text to fit the size of the cell; doesn't access have a
similar feature to shrink the size of text to fit the text box when needed?

 

[Jeff Boyce]

"Shrink the text" is a "how", as in how you've decided to solve the issue.

The issue sounds like it is that you have ocassional text that is longer
than the textbox you are using.

You don't mention whether this happens in a form or in a report, so I'll
answer the "report" version ...

In design view, make the textbox the size you need for most records. Open
up the property window for that textbox and find the CanGrow and CanShrink
properties. Set them both to "Yes".

Now, when a record has too much text, the textbox will grow (down) as much
as it needs to to display the text. If it doesn't need the extra, it will
shrink back.

If that isn't your situation, please provide a more specific description of
the issue.

Regards

Jeff Boyce
Microsoft Office/Access MVP