Text Area
A Text Area is a Salesforce custom field data type that stores multi-line plain text up to 255 characters.
Definition
A Text Area is a Salesforce custom field data type that stores multi-line plain text up to 255 characters. The "area" part means the input box is taller than a single-line Text field, so users can press Enter and keep line breaks inside the value. It holds plain characters only, with no bold, colors, or images.
Text Area sits in the middle of the text field family. Single-line Text also caps at 255 characters but on one line. Long Text Area and Rich Text Area both go up to 131,072 characters when you raise the limit. You pick Text Area when content is short, may span a few lines, and never needs formatting.
Text Area in the family of Salesforce text fields
What Text Area stores and how it behaves
A Text Area field accepts free-form characters and preserves line breaks the user types. That is the visible difference from a single-line Text field, which also stops at 255 characters but shows everything on one row. Both store plain text, so anything you save is exactly the characters entered, with no markup. The field renders as a small multi-row box on edit pages and record forms. On a Salesforce record detail view, the saved value keeps its line breaks so a short address block or a two-line note reads the way it was entered. Because the data is plain text, it behaves predictably in reports, list views, exports, and Apex. You read and write the value as a normal string. There is no rich-text object to parse and no HTML to strip. The 255-character ceiling is fixed for this type. You cannot raise it the way you can for Long Text Area. If a user pastes more than 255 characters, Salesforce blocks the save and shows a length error, so the cap is enforced at the data layer, not just in the UI.
Text Area versus Long Text Area versus Rich Text Area
These three field types look similar in the create-field wizard, and choosing the wrong one is a common early mistake. Text Area is plain text capped at 255 characters. Long Text Area is plain text with a configurable limit, defaulting to 32,768 characters and going as high as 131,072. Rich Text Area shares that same size range but stores formatted content, so it supports bold, underline, bullet lists, hyperlinks, and inline images. The maximum image upload in a Rich Text Area is 1 MB, and only .gif, .jpg, and .png files are allowed. Conversion between these types is limited. You can convert a Rich Text Area into a Long Text Area, but any images get deleted the next time the field is saved. You cannot convert a plain Text or Text Area directly into a Rich Text Area. Rich Text Area is also not supported on external objects. Pick Text Area when the content is short, plain, and needs only a few lines. Reach for Long Text Area when length is the requirement, and Rich Text Area only when formatting genuinely adds value.
Storage, governor, and platform behavior
Text Area data lives inline with the record, unlike Long Text Area and Rich Text Area, which Salesforce stores separately because of their size. That storage difference matters when you count fields against limits. In custom metadata types, for example, a Text Area field adds 255 characters to the usage count for each record, no matter how many characters were actually entered. Long Text Area in that context counts up to 255 characters per field toward the calculation. Knowing how each type is metered helps when you design data-heavy objects or large custom metadata definitions. Text Area also plays nicely with most platform features that a long or rich field cannot. It can appear in list views and report column filters as ordinary text. Long Text Area and Rich Text Area are restricted in several of those places. So a Text Area field is often the safer choice when admins want the value to be filterable and reportable, and when the expected content comfortably fits inside 255 characters.
Worked example: a delivery instructions field
Say a logistics team wants a "Delivery Notes" field on a custom Shipment object. Drivers add short notes like a gate code, a buzzer number, and a "leave at side door" instruction, often on separate lines. Single-line Text would force all of that onto one cramped row. Long Text Area would work, but it stores separately and is harder to surface cleanly in list views. Text Area is the right fit here. The admin creates a custom field, picks Text Area, names it Delivery Notes, and sets it to 255 characters, which is plenty for a few short lines. On the record page the field shows as a multi-line box. A dispatcher types three lines, saves, and the line breaks survive. The value shows up in reports and can be filtered in a list view. If the team later discovers notes routinely run past 255 characters, the admin can change the field type to Long Text Area to gain room. That direction of conversion is allowed and keeps the existing data intact.
Where Text Area shows up across Salesforce
Several standard objects already ship with Text Area fields, so the type is not just for custom work. The Street portion of a standard Address compound field is a Text Area, which is why you can enter a multi-line street value on an Account or Contact. Many description-style standard fields are plain text areas as well. When you build screens in Flow, a short text input can map to a Text Area, and a separate Long Text Area screen component exists for bigger inputs. In Apex and the APIs, a Text Area maps to a normal string, so you assign and read it like any other text field. In SOQL, you query it the same way you would any string field, and it can be used in WHERE clauses, which longer text types do not always allow. For page layouts, you can drag a Text Area onto a section and it renders as the multi-row box. Field-level security and validation rules apply to it exactly as they do to other custom fields, so you can hide it from some profiles or enforce content rules with a formula.
How to create a Text Area field
You create a Text Area as a custom field on any object through Setup. The flow mirrors creating any custom field, with the data type choice being the key step. Use it when content is short, plain, and may need line breaks.
- Open the object's Fields and Relationships
In Setup, use the Object Manager, open the object you want, then go to Fields and Relationships and click New to start the new custom field wizard.
- Choose Text Area as the data type
Pick Text Area, not Text Area (Long) or Text Area (Rich). Text Area gives you a multi-line plain-text box capped at 255 characters. Click Next.
- Enter the label, name, and details
Type a Field Label, confirm the auto-filled API name, and add help text if useful. The length is fixed at 255 for this type, so there is no limit to set.
- Set security and add to layouts
Choose which profiles can see and edit the field with field-level security, then select the page layouts where the field should appear, and click Save.
Select Text Area for a multi-line plain-text box limited to 255 characters.
The human-readable name shown on layouts and reports, for example Delivery Notes.
The unique developer name used by Apex, SOQL, and integrations, auto-filled from the label.
- The 255-character cap is fixed. You cannot raise it the way you can for a Long Text Area field.
- Text Area holds plain text only. If users need bold text, lists, or images, you need Rich Text Area instead.
- You can convert Text Area to Long Text Area to gain room, but you cannot convert it directly to Rich Text Area.
Trust & references
Cross-checked against the following references.
- Custom Field TypesSalesforce
- Rich Text Area Field ConsiderationsSalesforce
Straight from the source - Salesforce's reference material on Text Area.
Hands-on resources to go deeper on Text Area.
About the Author
Dipojjal Chakrabarti is a B2C Solution Architect with 29 Salesforce certifications and over 13 years in the Salesforce ecosystem. He runs salesforcedictionary.com to help admins, developers, architects, and cert/interview candidates sharpen their fundamentals. More about Dipojjal.
Test your knowledge
Q1. What is Text Area?
Q2. How does it differ from Text?
Q3. What's for longer content?
Discussion
Loading discussion…