Editing databases 2

4.  to remove spaces in records caused by use of the Enter key, particularly after data has been entered in a field leaving spare lines in the report and display forms

The spaces that appear in the above image in the Author, Genre, Subjects and Comments fields are caused by using the Enter key when data is entered.

This can easily be corrected by viewing the record in the Edit form and backspacing where the spaces caused by the use of the Enter key occur.

Generally the use of the Enter key will just cause the records to look untidy but for some projects it is necessary to locate and remove all occurrences of the use the Enter key, particularly if records are to be transferred to an Excel spreadsheet or another database that accepts records in an Excel format.

We encountered this issue in the library when IT decided to publish the local history databases online using MySQL. Any records where the Enter key had been used were rejected and unlike DB/TextWorks which informs you when records are not imported the library online database didn't.

One way to check for the use of the Enter key in a group of records is to export a set of records, view the export file in Notepad and use the Find feature (under the Edit menu) to locate the > symbol which appears when the Enter key has been used.

I take a note of the records that require editing and make the corrections in the database.
Another way would be to make the alterations in the Notepad file and then import the file back into the database, making sure that the the changed records replaced the existing records.