How to Add Long Text Column to Access Table Via Query

Question

I am updating a table in a .mdb format Access database with Access 2013. I want to add a new field, lets say a Description field, to an existing table.

I can add a text column using the following query

ALTER TABLE TestTable ADD Description TEXT(255);

Alternatively I could use

ALTER TABLE TestTable ADD Description varchar(255);

This works fine, and adds a column to TestTable called Description that is limited to 255 characters. If I open the table in Design View, I can see that the type of Description is listed as "Short Text". However, there is an option there to have the field be of type "Long Text" which as far as I can tell doesn't have a character limit. It is easy to manually change the type from the Design View, but I want to know if I can do this via a query.

I tried increasing the character count in my original query like so

ALTER TABLE TestTable ADD Description TEXT(300);

But then I recieve the error "Size of field 'Description' is too long."

What I want to know is can I add the column via a query such that it has a character limit greater than 255? This query is run as part of a macro that is run automatically, so I don't want to have to change it manually. My attempts at searching for a solution via Google have so far come up empty.

Answer 1

Found the answer shortly after posting the question. Using the query

ALTER TABLE TestTable ADD Description LONGTEXT;

creates a new column of type "Long Text". It should be noted that a character count was not necessary for this type.