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I have a dialog that puts a comment in a small textbox on a PDF export. The textbox has room for 10 lines of 100 characters (1000 characters maximum).

The field currently looks like this:

Input field with 9 characters entered

I have a counter on the bottom-right that states the maximum amount of characters the user can enter (including spaces). However, there is also a maximum amount of lines.

Is it OK to just add another label with like 1/10 ? Do i need to add 100 characters to the counter whenever the user adds a new line?

enter image description here

In the example above, the user has effectively used 303 characters, but only typed 9 characters

I'm not really sure how to inform the user about these limitations without confusion

Update

I figured that it's better to show the maximum amount of lines instead of characters, and make sure that the user cannot input more than 100 characters per line. This way, I don't really need to create weird calculations whenever the user hits enter.

Lines instead of max chars

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    Users should know that if they click enter that a character gets ticked off. Isn't that enough affordance?
    – UXerUIer
    Feb 4, 2016 at 17:34
  • The page does contain more info than just the image and the comment, but it was a requirement that ''everything fits on one page". So i have to limit the amount of characters the user can place in the comment box
    – DennisW
    Feb 5, 2016 at 9:42

3 Answers 3

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You could indicate lines separately. Also, you could try showing a visual marker for lines to indicate there are only 10 lines of space. Here is a quick sketch - enter image description here

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No don't add another label with 1/10 - this has no precedent and is confusing.

The best solution is to remove the line limit - it's only going to confuse and/or frustrate people.

If you are concerned about someone inputting too many newlines, then simply limit the output to only display the first 10 lines, followed by an option to view 'more...'.

If you have another good reason why line-count should be limited, do share!

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  • The written text is exported to a PDF file. The PDF can only be a single page. The size of the textbox on the PDF allows a maximum of 10 lines of 100 characters. So there has to be a line-limit AND a character limit
    – DennisW
    Feb 4, 2016 at 14:58
  • May I ask @DennisW why the PDF has to be one page?
    – UXerUIer
    Feb 4, 2016 at 17:35
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Here is a jsfiddle fiddle link https://jsfiddle.net/Simplybj/2w6c71bt/

i have created three prototype.

  1. just informing the user that spaces are also counted as the length of the user's input.
  2. 2nd one is the prototype which describes the spaces left by user as dotted part which is not as good i think.
  3. the third one is forcing the user not to use more then two spaces.

In different situation we can pick different way. I can't say any one these are best but may can solve problem according to need.

enter image description here

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