ActiveX text box bug: Multi-line property shrinks font when typing

[HollowMan19xx]

I have Office 2013, and have an Excel inspection form our technicians are going to be filling out in the field on tablets.

There is a section for Notes that they can enter free text, and I've used an ActiveX text box for that purpose. But if I set the property "Multiline" to true, the font becomes impossibly small when the user clicks in the box to type. When they leave the text box, it returns to normal.

I have a sample .xlsx file but I can't figure out how to attach it to this post.

Is this a bug with Excel 2013? Does anyone know a workaround other than merged cells and using alt-enter?

Thank you

 

[HollowMan19xx]

Link to example file:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/8tol9b2ymxocftx/ActiveX Text Box Bug.xlsx

If you have Office 2013, and click in the upper two text boxes, you'll notice the font shrink to nearly invisible proportions.
If you have Office 2010 or 2007, it will probably work fine.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e6o0zxdgwc8f9qi/ActiveX Problem Screenshot.jpg

 

[sunnyguy]

Link to example file:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/8tol9b2ymxocftx/ActiveX Text Box Bug.xlsx

If you have Office 2013, and click in the upper two text boxes, you'll notice the font shrink to nearly invisible proportions.
If you have Office 2010 or 2007, it will probably work fine.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e6o0zxdgwc8f9qi/ActiveX Problem Screenshot.jpg

Hi - I experience exactly the same problem as you. Did you allready find a solution or workaround for this? regards sunnyguy.

 

[HollowMan19xx]

Short answer: I found a way around it using another method.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/i808t3o0glimsi0/Form Popup.xls

Click on the block of merged cells and watch the magic happen.

Long story:

- Tried to log the issue with Microsoft online, but their web-based bug reporting feature has a bug in it.
- Called them, was told by the first person that they would definitely solve my problem, and that I was about to get a $50 service for free (confused? Me too)
- Took all my info and bumped me up a level
- Level 2 asked me all the same questions, and said that since it was an advanced, macro-based problem they'd have to bump me to Level 3. Technician was unable to respond logically to my point that this was a built-in standard feature of Excel that was causing the problem, and not any extra coding or add-on that I had installed.
- Level 3 is the first one that spoke English as a native language, and politely informed me that before we went any further, she would need my cc info so they could bill me $259. (Now add anger to my confusion!)
- Was unable to respond logically to my argument that all I wanted to do was report a bug. I no longer expected that they would fix it for me over the phone, but at least this would serve as a formal record of a bug report. Perhaps during the next revision of Excel the issue would be resolved, and I could stake some claim to "being the guy that told them about it".
- Reiterated that she could not help me unless I was willing to pay $259.
- Phone call ended politely, but she knew I was pissed.

So I did some more googling and found the solution with the pop-up form. I use it now in our field forms for the technicians and it works great.

Hope this helps someone.

 

[sunnyguy]

Thanks for your quick answer on this .

I did some further googling and testing around the problem and finally found a workaround that is different from the one you related to. The solution (see below) makes use of a textbox' getFocus Event, means that when a field with multiline property set to TRUE gets the focus I quickly set this property back to FALSE and after this to TRUE again. Before doing so I store the actual Position of the Cursor in the TextBox and set it back after having reset the multiline property. I only do this, if the file has been opened in EXCEL 2013 or above.

Private Sub Aufgaben_GotFocus()

Dim lngSelStart As Long

On Error Resume Next

If CInt(Application.Version) >= 15 Then
lngSelStart = Me.Aufgaben.SelStart
Me.Aufgaben.MultiLine = False
Me.Aufgaben.MultiLine = True
Me.Aufgaben.SelStart = lngSelStart
End If

End Sub

This way the text stays readable even if the user is clicking into the TextBox. But it is for sure a EXCEL bug which I hope will be fixed in the future. Hope this helps also you to go further with your work.

 

[rlcohen70]

If I had a form that have two worksheets in it with multi line foms when you you place this code?

 

[MarathonZephead]

Hi

Can somebody translate this code into English please?

Private Sub Aufgaben_GotFocus()

     Dim lngSelStart As Long

        On Error Resume Next

        If CInt(Application.Version) >= 15 Then
                lngSelStart = Me.Aufgaben.SelStart
                Me.Aufgaben.MultiLine = False
                Me.Aufgaben.MultiLine = True
                Me.Aufgaben.SelStart = lngSelStart
        End If

 End Sub

Many thanks!

 

[JamesEC]

I have Office 2013, and have an Excel inspection form our technicians are going to be filling out in the field on tablets.

There is a section for Notes that they can enter free text, and I've used an ActiveX text box for that purpose. But if I set the property "Multiline" to true, the font becomes impossibly small when the user clicks in the box to type. When they leave the text box, it returns to normal.

I have a sample .xlsx file but I can't figure out how to attach it to this post.

Is this a bug with Excel 2013? Does anyone know a workaround other than merged cells and using alt-enter?

Thank you

What I did to fix this was change the multiline property to False in the second (Copied) TextBox. I then changed the Multiline property to True and everything worked as expected.