Displaying long text object in SSRS report

Question

For a report I'm preparing with SSRS, one of the column is a really long text object (over 40,000 characters).

I prefer not to display this as a column-field value as it increases the size of the report to many pages.

Can anyone help me on accomplishing one of two following options on creatively displaying this text? (or a third creative way, if there's one)

1. Display only first 10 words/characters and let user choose to expand and view this text for that row item specifically.
2. Have a pop-up link which will let the user to view this text in a separate window.

Answer 1

This is how I do it using expression. If the text is more than 30 characters, it limits it to 30 characters and appends ... If the text is shorter than 30 characters then it stays as is

=iif (
len(Fields!LocationDescription.Value) >30,
 ((left(Fields!LocationDescription.Value,30)) & "..."),
 (Fields!LocationDescription.Value)
)

Answer 2

You could LEFT( string, number_of_characters ) the column and use that for your display with a drillthrough report that returns that specific rows full values, or you could use a drilldown action and use the substring as the display with the full string as the drilldown.

Drillthrough: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff519554.aspx

Drilldown: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd207042.aspx