Column Width Corrupts Values!?

[gmostroff]

I just noticed some behavior in Access that I have not seen, or
noticed, before. Is there some way to prevent it? Am I missing
something?

I do a query on some simple tables. One of the columns has values in
it of this sort:

18.34
11.2
10
21.23 ...

The values are correct. When I resize the column, i.e., make it more
narrow, the values that are displayed change. They are rounded up or
down to fit into the display space remaining. I find this bizarre.

Is this behavior to be expected always? It caused a problem, because
somebody printed out a table and the values appeared to be incorrect.
When I happened to resize the column, they were fine. People will, at
times, select column widths on the display that are too small to show
the entire numeral. Shouldn't it just truncate what is visible?

Thanks for your responses.

gmo

 

[Marshall Barton]

I just noticed some behavior in Access that I have not seen, or
noticed, before. Is there some way to prevent it? Am I missing
something?

I do a query on some simple tables. One of the columns has values in
it of this sort:

18.34
11.2
10
21.23 ...

The values are correct. When I resize the column, i.e., make it more
narrow, the values that are displayed change. They are rounded up or
down to fit into the display space remaining. I find this bizarre.

Is this behavior to be expected always? It caused a problem, because
somebody printed out a table and the values appeared to be incorrect.
When I happened to resize the column, they were fine. People will, at
times, select column widths on the display that are too small to show
the entire numeral. Shouldn't it just truncate what is visible?

Access is doing the best it can tp display the most accurate
information it can within the space s[ecified. How it does
it depends on the data type. For example, text is truncated.
Numbers are reformatted in various ways that take less
space, including using scientific notation, e.g. 1E5 instead
of 10000.

As for your wish to retain accuracy without sufficient
space. Normally truncation is LESS ACCURATE and rounding is
MORE ACCURATE.

Personally, I would never use a datasheet view for printing.
If you used a report, then you could prespecify the width of
the display and avoid the entire issue.

 

[gmostroff]

Thanks, for the reply.

I just wanted to make sure this is standard behavior so I can deal
with it properly. I'd never noticed it before, so I thought maybe I
had messed up something.

gmo