Problem entering data

[robleyd]

Hi,

It has been many years since I worked with a database. The last being MS Access back in 2001. I just downloaded Open Office and am using BASE. I created a database with not much problem. When created the database I clicked on TABLES and chose to use wizard to create table, chose customers sample table under Business, selected some field names and of course renamed fields to my preference and at the end chose Create a form based on this table. My database consists of all our customer jobs and what paint colors we used on their construction job. Now when I go to enter new data I have a field called Paint Colors and would like to enter them in a format such as :
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PPG SMOKE BLACK
PPG ROYAL BLUE
SHERWIN WILLIAMS MAGENTA
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BUT when I go to enter the info there is a lot of space before I can enter text and I cannot get it to look like the above format it just looks like it all runs together. What am I doing wrong. See below my example: Thanks and I hope someone can help me.. I'm usually pretty computer literate but this is so frustrating. DV
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PPG SMOKE BLACK PPG ROYAL BLUE SHERWIN WILLIAMS MAGENTA

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Title Edited. A descriptive title for posts helps others who are searching for solutions and increases the chances of a reply [robleyd, Moderator]. Was Open Office Base.

[UnklDonald418]

You have virtually no formatting options when entering data directly into a table. Controls on a a Base form have numerous formatting options so Forms are the best place to enter/display data.
Base is a front end for a HSQLDB relational database engine.
If you want to store more than one color for each customer you have a one to many (1 to n) relationship, which in a relational database requires a separate table to hold the colors.

I uploaded a small demonstration database.

Demo34_PaintColors.odb

(20.79 KiB) Downloaded 2 times

There is a Customers table to store all the information related to a customer.
There is a JobColors table that it where the information for each job is stored. Is allows you to save multiple paint colors for a job.
There is also a Colors table where the paint colors are actually defined.
There are two Forms.
PaintColorEntry is where you can add new paint colors.
CustomerJobs uses a MainForm/SubForm combination.On the MainForm you can select a Customer or add a new Customer.
The SubForm uses a table control to display the colors associated with the job for that customer. You can add more colors to the table using the list box to select a paint color from the list in the Colors table.

A Base handbook can be downloaded from
https://documentation.libreoffice.org/en/english-documentation/base/

For a tutorial on relational database design
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/images/0/02/Base_tutorial.pdf