I was really surprised, given all the advancements of RSForms, tht there was not native way to limit the character count of a texarea field. After looking through the knowledgebase and forum I found a few useful snippets, but the results didn't always work consistently on a multi-page form. So I just decided to add in a bit more scripting to the examples to get my desired result, I thought I'd share my solution...
What this does:
- Uses the character counter already provided in the documentation
- Hides the next button
- Displays an error message where the next button was located
- Re-displays the button as soon as the character count is corrected
- Removes the error message as soon as the character count is corrected

In order to get these results you must follow these steps:
1. Add in 2 free text fields with the following.
1a. Add "<div id="toolong"></div>" just above your submit or Next Page button (without quotes)
1b. Add "<div><span id="length"></span> Remaining characters (Max 160 )</div>" just above your text field (without quotes, replace with correct number)

2. Add the following to the Additional Attributes field of your textarea field (change 160 to whatever you want the length to be):
onkeyup="rslimitText(160);"
onKeyPress="rslimitText(160);"
onKeyDown="rslimitText(160);"

3. From Form Properties > CSS and Javascript scroll down to Javascript field and paste this in:

<script type="text/javascript">
function rslimitText(limitNum){
document.getElementById('length').innerHTML = limitNum - document.getElementById('metaDescription').value.length;
var msg = "You have reached your maximum limit of characters allowed, you must trim back your description before you can proceed.";
var hideBtn = document.getElementById("homeInfo").classList;

if (document.getElementById('metaDescription').value.length > limitNum) {

document.getElementById('toolong').innerHTML = msg;
hideBtn.add("hidden");

}
else {
hideBtn.remove("hidden");
document.getElementById('toolong').innerHTML = "";

}
}

4. Save your form changes
This worked well for me, I hope it does for you too!
Cindy Moore - mooretechsolutions.com

Thanks for taking time to post this. I did my best to follow the instruction but the web site returns a blank page (no form) when the java is inserted in the Form Properties Javascript section. The instructions for the fields seemed to produce normal results. Were there any changes needed for the javascript section?

Hi Stan9,

I think the ending </script> tag seems to be missing from my post. Could you try that?

Thank you so much for your reply. That solved the problem with the whole form displaying blank, but it still doesn't block long text. Are the only changes that need to be made the numbers? Does it matter what the free text fields and the text area field are named?