fv1609 Posted January 8, 2006 Share Posted January 8, 2006 Anyone got any tips on creating a database, I am wrestling with Access at present & it is all alien I just read chapter after chapter & its just like reading a PC book for the first time, frightening days! The problem is I have at least 5000 documents recorded in Word documents. What I want to be able to do is record the various document codes, type of document, subject & date. So I can fish out everything say on exhaust pipes or ferrets or everything published in a given year. I have just drawn up some columns of what I want & paste in the existing line I have from Word & select bits out & paste into each column. This takes 5 min. To do all of these it would take 2.5 weeks of non-stop work :cry: Does anybody have any ideas of automating this or any programme other than Excel that might do it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArtistsRifles Posted January 8, 2006 Share Posted January 8, 2006 Aha - now you are in my territory as I'm an Oracle DBA by trade!!! As a home user - unless you have excess capacity on your machine (*), then the Access database is the best route to follow. You have a number of routes available here as regards sorting the documents - these include (in theory) using the meta tags of the documents themselves for dynamic searches. The basic method, I'd have used, starting from scratch, involves assigning unique keywords to the documents then assigning the document file names to these key words. However you say you have started using an Excel sheet - well you can either use the Excel sheet as a search reference or import the sheet into a table within Access and search via that. Sounds a bit confusing, I know, but with practice it gets a lot easier. If I can help you with the donkey work/setting up at all feel free to ask. (*) IF you do have excess capacity then you can down load Oracle 9 Lite/personal edition free from the http://www.oracle.com web site - this allows you to include the content of the Word documents within the data base itself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fv1609 Posted January 8, 2006 Author Share Posted January 8, 2006 Neil Ah well I came unstuck in the first paragraph when you said "these include (in theory) using the meta tags of the documents themselves for dynamic searches". I do get confused between Access (which I take to be the database) & Excel (which I think of as the search engine & sifter out of data) but not sure if it's that clearcut. I have a book on Access but not sure if should be reading a book on Excel. Each document in Word is a line apart from the document code no. there are no columns. I was just hoping there was some way of plonking a pile of these Word bits & sliding a column line to split up each bit of info. It would be easy enough to column the Word info, then nice if I could plonk a column in bulk. But Word only allows line by line selections not columns. Or is there some way of columning the Word info so columns could be selected? Sorry for the dim questions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArtistsRifles Posted January 8, 2006 Share Posted January 8, 2006 Neil Ah well I came unstuck in the first paragraph when you said "these include (in theory) using the meta tags of the documents themselves for dynamic searches". I do get confused between Access (which I take to be the database) & Excel (which I think of as the search engine & sifter out of data) but not sure if it's that clearcut. I have a book on Access but not sure if should be reading a book on Excel. No problem - meta tags in MS OFfice documents are tricky at the best of times! Seperation between the two applications is: Access is a relational database tool. It can perform advanced searches on data and data objects (incl. images) then report these back in a coherent document form. Other data objects include Excel sheets (not enitre workbooks) and flat text file (.txt, .csv etc) Excel is a spreadsheet primarily designed for advanced number crunching but with limited text abilities. Each document in Word is a line apart from the document code no. there are no columns. I was just hoping there was some way of plonking a pile of these Word bits & sliding a column line to split up each bit of info. It would be easy enough to column the Word info, then nice if I could plonk a column in bulk. But Word only allows line by line selections not columns. Or is there some way of columning the Word info so columns could be selected? Sorry for the dim questions. We all have to start learning somewhere Fair swap - you've shared much info from your knowledge, least I can do is reciprocate!! Maybe the easiest thing would be if you could send me a couple of the word documents you have together with a run-down on how you want the data to be accessed - I can set the basic DB up for you and return it with a blow-by-blow "how to" for what I've done and you can then take it from there. If this is OK with you send the info through in a zip file to artistsrifles@another.com I've got Office 2003 here - which version are you using so I can ensure you can read what comes back!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fv1609 Posted January 8, 2006 Author Share Posted January 8, 2006 Right Ok. I'll send you one of my Word documents then a list of the columns I need. I need to transfer it over as its on another PC. I have this one for internet, fun & nonsense. Then the other that has no modem, no network & kept just for work & MV data. It struck me the safest firewall was no internet connection at all! Thanks I'll be intouch. Clive Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArtistsRifles Posted January 8, 2006 Share Posted January 8, 2006 OK - glad to be able to help!!! Wise move on the seperation !!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polecat paul Posted January 10, 2006 Share Posted January 10, 2006 Good luck i,ve got a headache just reading the post's about it all! :oops: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fv1609 Posted January 18, 2006 Author Share Posted January 18, 2006 For those have you who follow threads & then wonder when someone offers to help why it all goes quiet. Did A help B? Was the help no good or did they fall out or lose interest? Well Neil (ArtistsRifles) has been working away furiously on my behalf setting up a database for me. A task which I reckoned would taken me over 2 weeks CONTINUOUS work, assuming I could get the thing set up in the first place! It consists of a the tabulation of appx 760 Army training manuals, regulations, user handbooks etc I can now compile lists of: All documents that cover eg Humbers, Rovers, trailers, gas protection etc Groups according to type eg Vocabularies, regulations, parts lists etc Documents for a given year WO/Army Code no The system that predated WO/Army Code which was like this 57/Regulations/1234. But curiously when WO/Army Code was introduced documents also got a 57/Regulations/1234type of classification as well. This will enable me to 'break the code' for the logic (if there is any!) for these two systems. When 57/Regulations/1234 system was dropped a new system eg D/DAT/123/13/3 appeared now how that is structured is even more mysterious. (I know what the prefix which is most commonly 57 is used for) Furthermore all these documents include a Gp category which is up to 3 digits once I have entered these for all 760 documents I can arrange them numerically & see if a logic is evident. I am not needing to do anything like this for the EMER & AESP collection (sigh of relief from Neil) because they have a very sound & logical (well almost) structure. So well done Neil & many thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArtistsRifles Posted January 18, 2006 Share Posted January 18, 2006 No problems Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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