[Andrew W Scott]

Hi there

I just bought a new Vodafone branded BB 8310 in Australia. I love it - definitely the best smartphone I've ever had. It is almost perfect.

I have the syncing between the BB and Microsoft Outlook working perfectly - it's stable, quick and efficient. Much better than my last device which used Windows Mobile operating system. So far, so good.

I had four issues with the BB but searching through these excellent forums has resolved all but one issue.

The one unresolved issue is to do with the apparent limitation on the length of memos. It appears that memos max out at about 6,500 characters. I have a note on my Micosoft Outlook data file that is about 30,000 characters in length. When I sync it with the BB, only about the first 6,500 characters come through :(

I can hear you asking "So buddy, why do you have such a long note??"

Well, actually - it's my "TO DO" list. It's an 11 page Microsoft word document. Yes, I know I could use the "tasks" function in Outlook but I tried that years ago and I found it very inefficient. I like the freedom of just using a Word document - I can re-organise and re-prioritise easily by cutting and pasting great sections of it and just type in headings and so on "freeform" without the restrictions of populating fields that are really fairly arbitrary.

The big problem comes with trying to sync that big TO DO list with my BB. Since I don't want to use tasks, I thought the easiest thing would be to just paste the whole thing into a note - and then that would sync with a memo in the BB. And indeed it does, but it only picks up the first 6,500 characters or so :(

Yes, I know I could split my TO DO list into five notes and sync them - but that's starting to be quite a bit of work and then I have to find arbitrary breakage points.

Another problem is that the Curve doesnt have a page up/page down key in memos, you just have to use the trackball to laboriously move up and down through the long note. (for a more thorough discussion of this issue, see here: http://www.blackberryforums.com/gene...shortcuts.html)

Can anybody offer me any advice? Is there a way to increase the memo capacity? Is there a better way for me to sync my document with the BB?

ACTUALLY... (this bit written about an hour later)...

I just figured out a reasonable solution. I save the TO DO document as a Word '03 (.doc) document and then email it to myself. I wait up to 15 minutes for it to be pushed to my BB and then I can read it by opening the attachment. Of course I can't edit it but that's BB for you - you can't edit Word or Excel docs.

Note that my BB curve can't open the attachment if I save it as a Word '07 (.docx) document. When I hit the menu key "Open Attachment" doesn't come up as an option if the attachment is a .docx, but it does if the attachment is a .doc - presumably this issue will be resolved in later models.

This is a reasonable workaround but not the ultimate.

I've basically answered my own question but any thoughts or comments?

Cheers,
Andrew

[spdrcr5]

I just ran a quick test of the Memo Pad and here is what I came up with.

I created a Note in Outlook 2k3 that contained 19,857 characters (no spaces) and 24,702 characters (with spaces). I then waited for it to sync with my BB and copied the Memo and emailed it back to myself so I could count it.

After getting to the BB it became:

6,585 Characters (no space)
8,191 Characters (with spaces)

My guess is the 6,500 characters is the "limit" depending on the number of lines and spaces you have in the memo. I didn't put any line breaks into the text.

I honestly can't imagine ever having a need for a Memo that large. They are just supposed to be quick notes, nothing more than a few hundred characters. Look what they are in Outlook... they are just Yellow Post-It Notes, you can't put a 6,500+ word note to your co-worker on one of those, can you?

[Andrew W Scott]

Originally Posted by spdrcr5

I just ran a quick test of the Memo Pad and here is what I came up with.

I created a Note in Outlook 2k3 that contained 19,857 characters (no spaces) and 24,702 characters (with spaces). I then waited for it to sync with my BB and copied the Memo and emailed it back to myself so I could count it.

After getting to the BB it became:

6,585 Characters (no space)
8,191 Characters (with spaces)

My guess is the 6,500 characters is the "limit" depending on the number of lines and spaces you have in the memo. I didn't put any line breaks into the text.

I honestly can't imagine ever having a need for a Memo that large. They are just supposed to be quick notes, nothing more than a few hundred characters. Look what they are in Outlook... they are just Yellow Post-It Notes, you can't put a 6,500+ word note to your co-worker on one of those, can you?

Yup, you've basically recreated my experience.

Of course I agree with you that normally you wouldn't want anything that big. (although I do make extensive use of notes - I have 191 notes and the biggest of them are about 2,500 characters (with spaces)).

As I said in the original post, it wasn't really a note, it was my TO DO list which is about 30,000 chars long and I was making use of notes just as a way to get it on my BB since it was in Word format. But now I am emailing it to myself and that will have to do...