Record Too Large error message

[phillip]

Trying to figure out why I keep getting an error “Record Too Large” when trying to enter data into one of the empty fields in the table "CemeteryPlots". I have rebuilt the table, compressed the table, and looked for any special characters in the existing fields. Any help would be much appreciated. Attached is the db containing the table.

 

[moke123]

Your field size is set to 50. Increase it to 255.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

An Access record cannot store more than about 4k bytes across however many fields you have. You clearly have the potential for more than that number of bytes. Look into LONG TEXT fields which can hold longer sequences, as many as 65kbytes. I'm assuming each of the D1-D24, E1 series, F1 series etc. were done to store separate lines. This style of storage is not within Access design strengths.

 

[plog]

You don't have a database you have a spreadsheet.

Use Excel and this issue goes away. If you want to use Access I suggest you normalize your data (that's the process of properly structuring your tables/fields):

Database normalization - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[The_Doc_Man]

A second look at the way you are using this suggests a bad design. You don't have multiple records - you have a single record with a bunch of plots. I very strongly urge you to look up the topic of Database Normalization. You can EASILY store WHAT you want to store but not in the WAY you were storing it. Each plot would have its own record, the ID of which might be like your D1, D2, etc. and then it would store the name or names of the persons interred therein.

Stated another way, you were making the record very wide (many fields) but not very deep (number of records). That is the exact opposite of the way for which Access was designed.

 

[GPGeorge]

Trying to figure out why I keep getting an error “Record Too Large” when trying to enter data into one of the empty fields in the table "CemeteryPlots". I have rebuilt the table, compressed the table, and looked for any special characters in the existing fields. Any help would be much appreciated. Attached is the db containing the table.

Not having looked at the attached accdb, but basing this comment on what others have said, you can start to correct the problem by learning about the process of normalization.

Here is one excellent starting point:

Roger's Access Blog on correcting repeating columns

Here's a link to a YouTube video which I think is very good. It's oversimplified for beginners, but it will set you off in the right direction.

 

[Pat Hartman]

You need two tables.
tblPlots
PlotID (primary key)
Section (unique index, field1)
Sequence (unique index, field2)
Notes

tblPeople
PersonID (primary key)
PlotID (foreign key to plots) -- allows multiple people to be buried in the same grave
LastName
FirstName
MiddleName
Prefix
Suffix
DOB
DOD
BurialDT
Religion
ContactPerson
ContactPhoneNumber
ContactEMail
ContactAddress
Notes
... anything else that might be relevant