Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Looking for an Excel like program

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Posted by Greg Kristopik (Member # 594) on 06-28-2005, 05:02 PM:

So, I'm needing to make a database. I need to compile about 1,000 electronic files. I also want them to be easy to search. Excel works perfectly with the exception of having to make 1,000 different files and then have to go back and open each one individually.

What I would like would be just to have a sidebar on the left with the file name, click it and then just have it open in the window to the right. I hope that makes sense. Similar to Windows Explorer, but the file would just open up right in that pane and opening additional files would copy copy right over that.

Does anyone know of such a program????
Thanks in advance.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 06-28-2005, 05:42 PM:

What kind of electronic files are you looking to catalog?

Adobe Bridge is easily the best graphics file browser available on the PC platform. It incorporates many of the search features touted in the latest version of the MacOS. You can get customize-able, detailed previews of many types of graphics and photo image files. Bridge even displays all sorts of technical details about JPEG, TIFF and RAW images created in digital cameras. The only downside of Bridge is it can be a bit of a memory hog. If you're running Bridge while also running another AdobeCS2 application at the same time, you'll need at least 512MB to 1GB of RAM.

Posted by Mike Fitzgerald (Member # 1304) on 06-28-2005, 05:43 PM:

Ever since my trial license ran out on Excel I have used Open Office www.openoffice.org and had great success with it plus it it is totally free and there are a lot of people out there that have made different types of model spreadsheets for it. I would check this out and see if it fits your needs

Posted by Greg Kristopik (Member # 594) on 06-28-2005, 06:39 PM:

I'm looking to catalog files similar to excel, access, or word...in other words something you could create a spreadsheet with.

Thanks for the tips so far though. I'll look out for them.

Posted by Jason M Miller (Member # 2597) on 06-28-2005, 06:54 PM:

Are you a programer? If you are, just make your own program, You could create a database in Access(easiest way to do it if you are using VB) and the only thing in the database is the name of the file and the path of that file, then in your program create a list box that pulls all the names of the files and adds them to the list, then when you click on a file name have it open up the file using the path in the database.

Ok a little to much, but I really do not know if you are going to find a program like what you need.(as I understand it) Also if you are looking for just a spreadsheet program I would suggest OpenOffice too.

If you want a program made, let me know I will see what I can do.

Posted by Greg Kristopik (Member # 594) on 06-28-2005, 07:12 PM:

I am not a programmer. I used to know Access a while ago but am very very rusty.
Using Access, is it easy to have a big long list of, let's say, names, and with the list of names still remaining on the screen, pull up a mini spreadsheet of info on that person?

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 06-28-2005, 10:31 PM:

I'm not quite sure what you want to do.

Do you have a bunch of discrete documents, pictures, spreadsheets and other stuff spread all over your hard drive that you want to consolidate into one searchable window?

Then do what Bobby said.

Do you have these random pieces of information, names, adresses, dates, places and other things that you want to orgainze in a file that puts similar information in the same place? That's a database. It puts information into "fields" then groups those fields into "records" which are searchable and sortable as well as a whole bunch of other things.

If you want a database, FileMaker Pro is a good choice. It's about 9,000,000 times better and easier to use than Microsquat Access. It's also cross-platfrom. It's expensive but it works well. If you are using a Mac, Appleworks has a database module that's similar to FileMaker Pro. It can't build custom interfaces like FMP can but the basic operation is the same.

If you have a bunch of numbers that you want to line up in rows and columns and do calculations on then a spreadsheet is the thing you want. M$ Excell is a spreadheet program. Like Mike said, OpenOffice is a good (and FREE) choice.