Field is too small to accept the amount of data

[StephHansen]

I have an excel spreadsheet with the columns:

Origin
Factor
Description
Person

Description contains text, with the most words being 41 (248 characters).

I am getting a failed to open a rowset error with the following:
DAO Error Code: 0xc5b
Source DAO.Databaase
Description: The field is too small to accept the amount of data you attempted to add. Try instering or pasting less data.

How can this be? Is there a way around this? Crystal keeps crashing on me in this report when I try to add a field or a group.

Using CR9 and Excel 2003. Thanks!

Stephanie

 

[synapsevampire]

It sounds like an issue with the driver, I would try 2 different things:

Apply the service pack:

http://support.businessobjects.com/fix/hot/si75/default.asp

If that fails, try using ODBC instead of the Access/Excel DAO.

-k

 

[lupins46]

The maximum size of an xl cell is 255 characters.
I supect that your max data size must be more than this.

(Are you counting spaces in your 248?)

It sounds like you must be building the string that is exported in a formula. If so I suggest, for testing purposes, you create another formula field which just displays the length of the string.

evaluateafter ({@formula})
length({@formula})

and put this into yur detail line to see what is happening.
(Use the Highlightin Expert to highlight any values >255?)

 

[StephHansen]

I did have fields larger than 255. I split them out into two fields. HOWEVER, it keeps crashing on me whenever I add a field (text, report, anything). I am installing the service pack right now and I hope that helps. I have already unistalled and reinstalled CR twice.

Stephanie

 

[synapsevampire]

I just placed 300 chars into a Excel 2000 spreadsheet, and used CR 9 to open and display the data with no trouble.

I do have the latest Service Pack applied.

Keep in mind that Excel is a horrible data source, and that drivers reading it often get confused because of the poor data typing Excel supplies.

It may be that the first row of the spreadsheet is a number, such as 1. Excel in it's infinite ignorance will now decide that the column is a numeric when queried by external sources.

I've had to insert a fake row of data as the first row to force correct data typing in Excel.

Anyway, you now know that it has NOTHING to do with a 255 limitation, and that it does work in your environment.

-k

 

[lupins46]

Sorry - I was getting confused with column width in talking about cell size - for XL2003 the cell contents can be 32k characters.