Issue with unintended spaces in text fields

I think there are two steps. The first step is to clean up your existing data. Depending on the amount of data you could use grid edit and filter of report where the trim(Text field]) is not equal to the [text field] and hen copy paste the whole column to fix.

, Assuming that your data entry is being done from forms only and not grid edit, you could have this form rule. I tested it and it seems to behave OK but you might want to test this yourself.

When Multiple conditions are true
all of
is not equal to the value in the field [Text field]
[Text Field is not (blank) 
 
Action
Change [Text Field] to the value in the field  

and remember to uncheck the checkbox so the rule fires all the time.

The Form rule will certainly work perfectly as long as the user tabs out of the field before saving. So in your testing the torture test to try to break the rule is to save the record before the user has tabbed out of the [Text Field].

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Mark Shnier (YQC)
Quick Base Solution Provider
Your Quick Base Coach
http://QuickBaseCoach.com
mark.shnier@gmail.com
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