Re: why>?

Tech-Archive recommends: Fix windows errors by optimizing your registry

Aaron - I hope you'll let me jump in here with an honest question about a
repetitive action I perform using Word and Excel files and VBA. For the
record, I'm a self-taught (more like NG taught!) VBA newbie, having started
this about 2 1/2 years ago. I used Excel rather than Access because I was
basically familiar with Excel, and know almost nothing about Access. (I
thought I was doing great once to create two tables and link both to the
same query!) Also, more of the users here are familiar with Excel and
aren't afraid of spreadsheets - very few would know what to do with an
Access file. But if this project can be better done using Access, then I'd
honestly like to know where to start learning.

We have data in a dinosaur-age database written in Pascal. Don't say we
need to update - we all know it, just as surely as we know it's not going to
change until it crashes hard one Monday morning! If I ask for a "dump" of
all the reports connected with a certain project, I get one huge continuous
text file. I have macros in Word that split this text file into individual
reports and saves them as Word docs. The macros also scan through each
individual report to pull off some 20 data points and writes these to an
Excel file. The Excel file also contains macros which allow the user to
text search the spread***, text search each and all report files, and
retrieve for viewing any report file by selecting the report number on the
spread***. A single folder containing all the report files and the Excel
workbook is burned to a CD and distributed to some users, and posted to a
network location for others.

My experience with Access is that the user isn't ever supposed to see the
tables. Also, I would have no idea how to create the search macros. With
Excel, the user gets to see all the data, and sort and filter as desired.
With the help of the NG MVPs, writing the Excel VBA for the search codes was
do-able.

Am I missing a whole world of distributable apps that would be "bigger,
better, faster, more"?

Ed


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