[thelist] Export comments from Excel?

[Mark Gregor]

Hmm...not quite the thing I was looking for.  Maybe an example will help me
explain things:

We developed a system that lets visitors generate custom graphs, maps,
charts, and more based on data that *began* in an Excel spread sheet.  The
system is called KIDS COUNT and you can see it in action here:
http://www.aecf.org/kidscount/kc2000/.

If you generate a report (any graph will do) at the bottom there will be a
"Definitions & Data Sources" area that is dynamically placed in the page
based on the indicator you selected in the previous screen.

The way we do this now is that in the Excel spreadsheet, the title of each
indicator has a unique ID that corresponds to another Excel sheet that
contains the definition and data source.  When everything is exported as
delimited text files (the final format of the database once it's up on the
site), the system knows what definition and data source to attach to each
indicator.

This method works fine, but ideally, right mouse clicking on the cell and
selecting "insert comment" would be much easier for my clients to maintain
than having to bounce from one sheet to another.

Anyway, I'm fairly sure this isn't possible, but thought I'd ask.  Oh, and
before anyone jumps on me for keeping the database in Excel rather than a
"real" database, there are compelling reasons (non-technical, more on the
client's side) to keep it in Excel.  Also, we're entirely open source, so
it's Linux/Apache/MySQL/etc.

Thanks and sorry for the length!

-Mark

> -----Original Message-----
> From: thelist-admin at lists.evolt.org
> [mailto:thelist-admin at lists.evolt.org]On Behalf Of aardvark
> Sent: Monday, August 14, 2000 1:38 AM
> To: thelist at lists.evolt.org
> Subject: RE: [thelist] Export comments from Excel?
>
>
>
> it's late, and i dunno if i understand your problem (mmm...
> hard cider... ok, actually all i had was root beer, but it
> *is* late) but this might help, or not...
>
> Using Excel Spreadsheets as Web Data Sources
> http://evolt.org/index.cfm?menu=8&cid=591
>
> this assumes IIS... read the comment, tho...
>
> > From: Mark Gregor
> >
> > Is there anyway to export data from an Excel
> > worksheet and have all comments
> > from that sheet export with the data?  We have a
> > web-based system that reads
> > data from an exported, tab-delimited Excel sheet
>
>
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