Is there a way a table can override the size so no matter what you put inside the table will not be forced to enlarge?

No, but you can check your input instead:

use CGI qw(:standard);

my $text_field = param('text_field') || '';
$text_field =~ /\A(
    \w{0,50}  # Only let through 50 word charcters, at most
)/x;
$text_field = $1;
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I wanted to explore how Perl's closures can be manipulated, and ended up creating an object system by accident.
-- Schemer

Note: All code is untested, unless otherwise stated