Beginner Question Regarding Single Select Field Character Limits / Linked Record

[Lou_Civitello]

Hello, I’m a new user and looking to set up a quick questionnaire. I discovered pretty quickly that there are character limits on the Single Select Field option which is causing parts of the options to be cut off.

I saw references to using Linked Records to get around the character limits, but I’m struggling to see how exactly to do that. Is there a tutorial that I can follow to see how this is done?

Thank you in advance!

[kuovonne]

Welcome to the Airtable community!

In my experience, single select options can have fairly long values, unless you are trying to display them in a form. How long is the single select option that you want to use?

Can you share a screen shot of where your single select field options are being cut off?

Using a linked record field instead of single select requires setting up a second table where each value is a row in the new table. You can read more about linked record fields on the support website here.

[Lou_Civitello]

Thank you kuovonne!

I am trying to display a form, this is the view in the form:

Some of the options are quite long, so there is a decent amount of text being cut off.

[kuovonne]

Yes, Airtable has character limits when you are trying to display select values in a form.
In these situations, I usually shorter values for the single select values, and then explain each of the options in more detail in the help text for the question.

[Lou_Civitello]

Is there a way to get help text in each of the options on a Single Select form? I only see the one field that text can be entered in.

[kuovonne]

No, there is only one help text for the entire question.

[ScottWorld]

@Lou_Civitello If you need more advanced form capabilities than what Airtable offers, I would highly recommend using JotForm, which is one of the most advanced form-building tools on the market.

JotForm also has native integration with Airtable:

jotform.com

Online Form Builder & Form Creator | JotForm

Airtable combines two of the most powerful business tools in productivity; spreadsheets and databases, to provide an incredibly flexible way of...

[Lou_Civitello]

So is there a way to use the Linked Record Field, where the values can be displayed as clickable options to a question? Similar to the screen shot below:

Or will the end result have to look like this:

Which creates a different look in the Form view (below)

[Lou_Civitello]

Hi Scott, I appreciate the response, but jotform seems like it might be way more than what my team needs at the moment. I’m definitely going to bookmark the link you sent for future reference.

[kuovonne · Accepted solution]

Lou_Civitello:

So is there a way to use the Linked Record Field, where the values can be displayed as clickable options to a question?

Not the way you want. Airtable forms are fairly limited.