I have developed a fairly complex office management solution which also allows the user to write and print simple letters within FMP.

Those letters can be as long as the field that holds the data can be in FMP 8 (10 to 12 pages).

I've been using this happily in MacOS X environments for some time.

Now I have a client who wants to keep his Windows 2000 setup...

It turns out that data entry into that long field is almost impossible because it takes seconds before the text shows up. Nobody wants to type like that.

They have reasonably fast PC's and a good network. It seems to be a problem within FileMaker.

I've run some tests and I can accelerate the whole thing quite a lot by shortening the field.

I have a feeling that FMP 8 still has a serious problems with long text fields. It doesn't always wrap the text properly and I'm quite sure the screen refresh problems this client has also stems from the problems FMP has with drawing fields.

Any thoughts on this?

Just type the text into a short field with a scroll bar and then use a merge field for viewing/printing the formatted letter.

That is actually not a bad idea.

Won't use the merge fields because users would hate losing their formatting but maybe using a "small field layout" for data entry and a "long field layout" for previewing and printing is a workaround.

Note that it involves using custom print scripts and blocking the normal print menu with FMP8 Advanced too.

I'll give it a try.

But if someone has a suggestion on how to fix FMP's handling of long text in a field... they would be my hero ;-)

I have submitted several bug reports on this issue. I will report back with any news.