Forcing Proper Text in a data entry field

[StaceyP]

This shouldn't be rocket science, but i can't locate a solution anywhere. i want to force users to enter the proper upper/lower case while doing data entry. I can't seem to find the correct solution. Anyone have the answer?

[David Jondreau]

It's not rocket science, it's harder!

What sort of text are people entering? What languages are being used? Even English has a lot of capital letters that can appear in places other than the beginning of a sentence or even a word.

[Fitch]

Start with the Proper function. You might for example set the auto-entry options for the field to Proper(your field), and uncheck the "do not replace" checkbox.

[StaceyP]

Yes, that's my frustration; the auto-enter solution noted below is one solution, but the company I'm doing the work for has a capitalized letter in the middle of their single-word name, so just to start with all of those individuals will be wrong.

It is in English.

What i would really like is just a pop up that reminds the user to check their work, like you can do when a user puts more than 5 digits in a zip field. Any brilliant ideas?

Edited October 23, 2008 by Guest

[Vaughan]

You could set up field level validation with a calculation to throw an alert if the text in the field is all upper or all lower case, but that's about as automated as it can get. Capitalisation and spelling of people's names are too variable. (Where I work, somebody's last name begins with an apostrophe. Apparently it's common with Pacific Islander names.)

Popping up a reminder for the user to check their work will be at best annoying.

[Fitch]

Maybe you could conditionally format a text label next to the field to light up when you *think* the field might be wrong. Much less annoying than a dialog.

[StaceyP]

I really like that idea to conditional format; it will be a good reminder for the users and not complicate what is supposed to be a really simple database.

Thanks everyone!