Dear all,
I have a problem with my formular. I wrote some multiple select answers when creating the formular but when opened to be answered, some texts are cut, so only first part can be read. How can I address this problem?
Thank you
Lidia
Solved
Character limit in shown answers of multiple select option
Best answer by ScottWorld
It looks like you just stumbled upon a limitation of Airtable. I would submit this as a feature request to support@airtable.com, or fill out the feature request form here.
As a workaround, you could leave your question on the form as-is, and just add some descriptive text above that question.
You could also switch the multi-select field to a linked record field. It will still cut off text, but you will get a few more characters of space.
Another workaround: You could separate out your multi-select field into 5 different checkbox fields… so you would have 5 different checkbox fields. Then, on your form, you could put 5 different checkbox fields on the form, and add extra descriptive text to each one of those 5 fields. Not the best solution nor the prettiest solution nor even the best way to setup a table, but it would work.
However, your best option for this would probably be to use Fillout’s advanced forms for Airtable because as far as I can tell, Fillout never cuts off text.
Fillout is 100% free, and it offers hundreds of features that Airtable’s native forms don’t offer, including the ability to update Airtable records using a form, display Airtable lookup fields on forms, create new linked records on a form, control access to a form via SSO or email domains, perform math or other live calculations on your forms, accept payments on forms, collect signatures on a form, create multi-page forms with conditional paths, connect a single form to dozens of external apps simultaneously, add CAPTCHAs to your form, and much more.
I show how to use a few of the advanced features of Fillout on these 2 Airtable podcast episodes:
- Using Fillout to create an eSignature approval process with PDF file creation.
- Using Fillout to create an order entry form with line items.
Hope this helps! If you’d like to hire the best Airtable consultant to help you with anything Airtable-related, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consultant — ScottWorld
+35It looks like you just stumbled upon a limitation of Airtable. I would submit this as a feature request to support@airtable.com, or fill out the feature request form here.
As a workaround, you could leave your question on the form as-is, and just add some descriptive text above that question.
You could also switch the multi-select field to a linked record field. It will still cut off text, but you will get a few more characters of space.
Another workaround: You could separate out your multi-select field into 5 different checkbox fields… so you would have 5 different checkbox fields. Then, on your form, you could put 5 different checkbox fields on the form, and add extra descriptive text to each one of those 5 fields. Not the best solution nor the prettiest solution nor even the best way to setup a table, but it would work.
However, your best option for this would probably be to use Fillout’s advanced forms for Airtable because as far as I can tell, Fillout never cuts off text.
Fillout is 100% free, and it offers hundreds of features that Airtable’s native forms don’t offer, including the ability to update Airtable records using a form, display Airtable lookup fields on forms, create new linked records on a form, control access to a form via SSO or email domains, perform math or other live calculations on your forms, accept payments on forms, collect signatures on a form, create multi-page forms with conditional paths, connect a single form to dozens of external apps simultaneously, add CAPTCHAs to your form, and much more.
I show how to use a few of the advanced features of Fillout on these 2 Airtable podcast episodes:
- Using Fillout to create an eSignature approval process with PDF file creation.
- Using Fillout to create an order entry form with line items.
Hope this helps! If you’d like to hire the best Airtable consultant to help you with anything Airtable-related, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consultant — ScottWorld
Wow, looks like you just stumbled upon a major bug/limitation of Airtable. I would report this bug to support@airtable.com.
You could leave your question on the form as-is, and just add some descriptive text above that question on your form to explain what #1 says… but that would look extremely strange and ugly and bizarre.
A better option using descriptive text would be to just change your multi-select field to numbers, and add descriptive text above it to be an “index” as to what the numbers represent. The good news is that descriptive text doesn’t seem to have a limit on the Airtable forms. The bad news is that these options will just show up as numbers in your base, but you could create a formula field in your base to translate what the numbers represent as text.
Without being forced to switch to another form building software platform altogether, your only other options would be to change the structure of your base.
Instead of using a multi-select field, you could switch it to a linked record field instead… where the choices would be stored in a linked table. Airtable forms will still cut off the names of linked records, but I think you’ll get a few more characters out of it. You’ll have to experiment to see if you can squeeze a few more characters out of it that way.
You could also separate out your multi-select field into 5 different checkbox fields… so you would have 5 different checkbox fields. Then, on your form, you could put 5 different checkbox fields on the form, and add extra descriptive text to each one of those 5 fields. Not the best solution nor the prettiest solution nor even the best way to setup a table, but it would work.
Otherwise, you’d have to turn to external form building tools to make this work properly. :frowning:
Hope this helps! If this answers your question, could you please mark this comment as the solution to your question? This will help other people who have a similar question. If not, please let me know what else you need help with! :slightly_smiling_face:
Hi Scott,
Thank you very much, I’ll check what you are suggesting! :grinning_face_with_big_eyes:
Lidia
+2I’ve noticed on multiple occasions that there are minimal text-wrapping options within tables, interfaces, and forms. This can be especially frustrating in forms, as it limits the amount of text available for answers.
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