Formatting issue with Enum (dropdown) values in AppSheet (spacing + truncation)

AppSheet AppSheet Q&A
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Desktop Mode

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Mobile & Tablet Mode

Hi everyone,

I’m facing an issue with how long text is displayed in AppSheet, and I’m hoping to get some guidance.

I have a column pulling structured text from a Google Sheet. The content includes multiple lines and fairly long sentences (policy-style descriptions). However, in AppSheet Desktop Mode, the text appears poorly formatted, with sentences getting cut off or displayed in an unstructured way. It looks like the content is being truncated or not rendering cleanly, which makes it hard to read.

What I’ve already tried:

  • Updated and cleaned up the text formatting directly in Google Sheets

  • Ensured there are no unwanted line breaks or hidden characters

  • Synced the app multiple times, currently using Enum

Despite this, AppSheet still shows the same messy or “hanging” text output.

What I’m trying to achieve:

  • Properly structured and readable text (ideally preserving line breaks or paragraphs)

  • No truncation or awkward cut-offs in the UI for Desktop view

Questions:

  1. Is there a recommended column type or setting to properly display long formatted text?

  2. Does AppSheet cache text in a way that prevents updates from reflecting immediately?

  3. Would using virtual columns or formatting expressions help control the display better?

Appreciate any advice or best practices to make the text cleaner and more structured in AppSheet.

Thanks in advance!

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I believe your use case is somewhat of an edge case for the use of enums in any mobile or web app.

The enums in majority of the cases are used for making quick selections among the options and so their values / descriptions need to be short.

So I believe the developers in desktop design have solved it in a different manner. The user can still see the entire description of a selected option using the mouse hover display as the screenshot below shows.

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Another option you could use with two columns wherein the user selects a number or a short description of the enum option and a show column below it shows the long description of the selected option. The app saves just the number of the selected option in the backend. You can anyway get the longer description from the selected option by lookup whenever you need to.

Long_Description_Enum

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