Geotrace string truncated and area calculation

Dear ODK users,

I'm new to ODK and I'm now analysing data collected with Geotrace.

Data look like this (one cell):
12.416629421784283 37.59671424251596 1993.8934136246776 6.0; 12.416479997387624 37.59675837626236 1993.6542834206723 4.0; 12.416379606381305 37.59675997386694 1993.3067534667914 4.0; 12.416353450984571 37.59687075454621 1992.9546061427736 4.0; 12.41635870

Truncated at 255 characters.

Is it somehow possible to get the full string (>255) when the length has not been specified in the xlsform?
Or will this mean that all collected data are incomplete because of this...?

Other question:
Does someone by any chance have an R script to calculate the area from geotrace output?

Many thanks in advance,

Suzanne