Here is another solution to Episode 585: Instead of trying to limit how much data the person can type into a field, you can use the Shrink to Fit setting to reduce the font size to allow all of your information to appear. Episode 586 shows you how.
This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 277 tips from the book!
This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 277 tips from the book!
Transcript of the video:
Hey, welcome back to the MrExcel netcast.
I'm Bill Jelen.
Yesterday we had a question send by Ron, from Dallas.
If you have a question for the net cast, please feel free to leave a voice mail or drop me a note bill@MrExcel.com.
And we'll get to your question on a future podcast.
Now Ron had set up a form in Excel.
And he said hey, basically I want to make sure that no one types something that's too long, in this particular merge field.
If they type something that's too long, and we print the form we won't see the bit.
That's too long.
So, yesterday I tried using data validation and the custom text length, in order to prevent someone from entering something that was too long.
But the big problem with that is that they didn't know it was too long, until they'd already hit Enter.
I projected, if we had actually used that in real life.
Someone would be smashing their laptop against the wall, after about five minutes of using it.
And it'd be cursing the person who designed the form.
Me!
So, instead I have a better solution.
Let's let them type as much as they want in the form.
But force Excel to show us the whole value.
So, for example if they type in this is really, important information.
And Ron has a great point.
Right now when we print that, we're going to lose part of that information Let's go back to the cell as we're designing the format.
We're going to go to Format>Cells.
Go to the second tab, the alignment tab.
On the alignment tab, there is a great setting they're called shrink to fit.
Shrink To Fit basically says, hey if they type in something that's a little bit too long for the field, will reduce the font size.
That way when we print it, You can see all of the information.
Now of course this would work great for fields that were just a little bit too long.
That way you have maybe about seven or eight point font there, and if they type a whole paragraph, and it's going to be in one or two or three point five.
So you have to make sure that your field is about the right size.
And maybe just allow for them to spill over a few extra characters, and have a print.
I think this solution is actually much better than using Data validation that we did yesterday.
Mm Shrink To Fit.
Basically make sure that you see the data .
Most of the time, I don't print a 10 point or whatever your default is, but if they type in something, that's just a bit too long, It'll make the point size a little bit smaller to solve the problem.
So there you have it.
Thanks for standing by.
I will see you next time, for another netcast from MrExcel.
I'm Bill Jelen.
Yesterday we had a question send by Ron, from Dallas.
If you have a question for the net cast, please feel free to leave a voice mail or drop me a note bill@MrExcel.com.
And we'll get to your question on a future podcast.
Now Ron had set up a form in Excel.
And he said hey, basically I want to make sure that no one types something that's too long, in this particular merge field.
If they type something that's too long, and we print the form we won't see the bit.
That's too long.
So, yesterday I tried using data validation and the custom text length, in order to prevent someone from entering something that was too long.
But the big problem with that is that they didn't know it was too long, until they'd already hit Enter.
I projected, if we had actually used that in real life.
Someone would be smashing their laptop against the wall, after about five minutes of using it.
And it'd be cursing the person who designed the form.
Me!
So, instead I have a better solution.
Let's let them type as much as they want in the form.
But force Excel to show us the whole value.
So, for example if they type in this is really, important information.
And Ron has a great point.
Right now when we print that, we're going to lose part of that information Let's go back to the cell as we're designing the format.
We're going to go to Format>Cells.
Go to the second tab, the alignment tab.
On the alignment tab, there is a great setting they're called shrink to fit.
Shrink To Fit basically says, hey if they type in something that's a little bit too long for the field, will reduce the font size.
That way when we print it, You can see all of the information.
Now of course this would work great for fields that were just a little bit too long.
That way you have maybe about seven or eight point font there, and if they type a whole paragraph, and it's going to be in one or two or three point five.
So you have to make sure that your field is about the right size.
And maybe just allow for them to spill over a few extra characters, and have a print.
I think this solution is actually much better than using Data validation that we did yesterday.
Mm Shrink To Fit.
Basically make sure that you see the data .
Most of the time, I don't print a 10 point or whatever your default is, but if they type in something, that's just a bit too long, It'll make the point size a little bit smaller to solve the problem.
So there you have it.
Thanks for standing by.
I will see you next time, for another netcast from MrExcel.
