This has been discussed a long time ago (see topics 34637 and 41683 for instance). Can anyone comment on the solution suggested by http://www.filemaker.com/support/kb/?answers/detail/a_id/1008 ? The field ¦ in not PatternCount(TextField, "¦") >= 1 suggests the existance of a 'soft carriage return as a result of wraparound'. Puzzled !

What exactly is your question?

ah sorry: does anyone know this strange character ¦ ? And what is your comment on the suggestion by http://www.filemaker.com/support/kb/?answers/detail/a_id/1008 that this character may signify the soft return that is caused by the wraparound? If that were the case I could simply count the number of occurences and hence the number of lines in the textbox. Unless I completely misunderstood question (hard to believe) and answer in this knowledge base item. Thanks a lot in advance !

I think it's a very old article and it probably underwent some conversion and didn't survive too well. The original formula must have been:

not PatternCount(TextField, "¶") >= 1

which, if true, indicates there are no HARD returns in TextField.

I never thought of that ! Guess I'll have to live without it then. A monospaced font is no option here in the solution I'm building

You still haven't said what do you need and for what purpose. The rendering of text on screen is done on-the-fly, and can vary from system to system, between screen and print, different printers, etc.

On the layout there is only room for max 7 lines of text. I want to restrict the user to input more than that.

As a user, I would find that extremely annoying. But if you really need this, I suggest reading these:

http://fmforums.com/forum/showtopic.php?tid/188854/post/302857/#302857

http://fmforums.com/forum/showtopic.php?tid/209552/post/333967/#333967

http://fmforums.com/forum/showtopic.php?tid/211026/post/340199/#340199

Thanks, some good suggestions here ! Unfortunately I can't use any font size changes, since the document layout is made obligatory (by the government).