Paste text with newlines in it in Sql Server management studio 2008 'edit top 200 rows' window in a varchar(200) column

Question

I have to manually edit a few records in the (SQL 2008) database.

I open up SSMS, rightclick on the table, choose 'edit top 200 rows', locate the right record and column, paste my text (which is something like this, bold only for presentation):

Hi Michel,

Congratulations!

John

And all that is stored is 'Hi Michel,'

all the lines but the first are 'lost'.

Is there a nice feature to paste the ENTIRE text in the field?

Answer 1

I'm not aware of a way to do this manually so i think your stuck with writing SQL. For that as your editing records you could write it as an update statement.

String literals can span multiple lines, so you should be able to paste your updated in without reformatting it.

e.g.

UPDATE your_table
SET field_to_update = 'Hi Michel,

Congratulations!

John'
WHERE field = criteria_to_match

Answer 2

You'd be better working in script. You can just write an update:

UPDATE <Table Name>
SET Column = 'Hi Michel,

Congratulations!

John'
WHERE <Key column conditions>

I don't believe there's any way to do this via the Edit pane.