Sharepoint 2007: Add a Column to a List or Document Library

Problem : You want to create a new column and add it to an existing list or document library. For example, you might want to add a date column called Birthday for a contacts list or a choice or lookup column called Client to a document library so that the users can choose which client the document is about.

Solution : To add a column to a list or document library, select the Create Column option from the Settings menu in any view of the list or document library, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Open the Settings menu and choose the option to add a column to the list or library.

Tip

The Create Column option creates a new column in the list or library but does not let you select from the site columns that are already set up in the site

Choosing the Create Column option opens the page where you can define the type of column you want to add, as well as set the settings on that column (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. Creating a new column.

The first choice to make is the name of the column. Column names must be unique in the list (you cannot have two columns with the exact same name).

After choosing the name for the column, you must choose the type of the column, as shown in Figure 2. There are numerous types of columns, and developers may add to those types, so you might see more than the built-in types.

All column types require you to choose a name for the column. They also allow you to specify the description for the column and whether the column is required (making the column mandatory in the list—forcing the user to fill it in when creating or editing an item), and whether the column should be added to the default view of the list or library (see Figure 3). Other than the column type all options can be modified in the future. Changing the column type for a column is possible but is limited to certain column types.

Figure 3. Defining the settings for a new column.

However, each column type can offer different configuration options for that column; for example, a Single Line of Text column type has a Maximum Number of Characters setting, whereas Multiple Lines of Text column type has a Configuration option for how many lines it should allow.