Sharepoint 2013 : Choose a Column Type (part 2) – Append Changes to Existing Text, Choice Column

Number of Lines for Editing

The Number of Lines for Editing setting determines how many lines are displayed in the editing box for the text. This can be any number from 1 (where only one line will be displayed, but users can scroll down or up in the box) to 1,000. This setting does not affect the length of the text that can go into the column, just the appearance of the editing box (refer to Figure 5).


Tip

Keeping the number small in the Number of Lines for Editing setting is recommended so that the column editing box doesn’t take a huge amount of space in the editing form.


Specify the Type of Text to Allow

In the Specify the Type of Text to Allow setting, you can specify the type of text that can be entered in the editing box. The simplest option is Plain Text, which allows just simple, unformatted text (refer to Figure 5). The users do not have options to make any part of the text bold or a different font.

The next option, Rich Text, enables the users to set formatting on parts of the text and set the font, font size, alignment, color, and other kinds of formatting that are common when writing rich text.

The last option, Enhanced Rich Text, allows even more special formatting, such as making parts of the text into hyperlinks, adding images to the text, and creating tables.

Append Changes to Existing Text

The last option, Append Changes to Existing Text, lets you configure what happens when someone edits the value of the column in a list item or a file. The default setting is No, which means that when someone edits the value, the value just changes to the new value. Users who then view the properties of the list item or file see the new value, not the old one. If they want to see the old one, they must open the list item’s or file’s version history, if versioning is configured in the document library.

Choosing Yes here changes how the column is displayed when users view the properties of the list item or file. Instead of seeing just the current value, user also see the entire history of what the value was before, including who made changes and when. This option can be turned on only when versioning is enabled on the list or library because SharePoint must track the old versions of the value to show this information. 

When the Append Changes option is enabled, the old entries and the current one appear under the editing box for the column. If no old entries exist, that is shown also (see Figure 8).

FIGURE 8 The Address column shows that there haven’t been any old values.

When old entries exist, such as corrections to a value, they are shown to a user viewing the item as a list of values, complete with who wrote the value and when (see Figure 9).

FIGURE 9 The Address column shows the history of changes when users view the properties of a list item.

When you are editing a list item of a file, the list of values appears below the editing box for the column, and the edit box is empty (see Figure 10).

FIGURE 10 The Address column shows the history of changes when editing the properties of a list item.

Choice Column

You can use a choice column when you want users to choose from a list of options for the value of the column in different configurations (for example, a list of regions or countries, as shown in Figures 11 through 13), with different controls appearing to the user.

FIGURE 11 A choice column that allows users to select one or more choices from a list.

FIGURE 12 A choice column that allows users to select only one choice, using the drop-down menu configuration.

FIGURE 13 A choice column that allows users to select only one choice, using the radio buttons configuration.

Choice columns enable you to specify the values you want the users to choose from, and you can configure them to allow the users to either make a single selection or select multiple values from the list (see Figure 14).