Oooh. Cool new Apple stuff. My favorite geek porn.
Excel question:
I've never been, nor shall I ever be, Excel-lent with spreadsheets or databases. But I really NEED a contact database to use with my autoresponder and email communications.
So. I put together a spreadsheet that includes 385 names...email first, fname, lname, some segment categories, address, etc.
The problem is, I dumped the data from a bunch of different resources and it is in no particular order.
I would like to sort by last name and keep the records together, but that doesn't seem possible.
Am I a complete idiot? The sort function keeps telling me that my cells have to be the same size.
I'm confuzzled.
...And Apple just introduced a new spreadsheet app.
Will it import an excel spreadsheet and let me sort by record?
Excel's not for records. Access is for records.
I know, I know--that ship has sailed and it's a de facto database for many people, but it's so damned broken that way I've given up on trying to fix it with shoestrings and ceiling wax.
The problem with Access is that when you open it up, as a person who jsut wants to do a mail merge, it is very confusing. Most people at my job just actually TYPE ALL THEIR MAILING LISTS DIRECTLY ONTO LABELS IN WORD and then HAND PICK THROUGH THEM TO MAIL THE ITEMS or merge to lists. So, using excel is an improvement, I think.
I am not sure I understand why it needs your cells to be all one size, or why they wouldn't be. I feel like I could probably fix it if you emailed it to me...
You can sort "by record" in Excel - just select the entire range of stuff you want sorted and use the sort function (under the Data menu).
The sort function keeps telling me that my cells have to be the same size.
OK, I don't understand what's going on here.
Beej, you probably have some merged cells in the list you're trying to sort.
Sophia do you have Word 2007? Because the mail merge for that is really very good.
I don't sumi--we only end up getting new computers/software about every 6 years!
I ended up learning enough access that it is no longer confusing to me, and now we are actually spending the money to get a database built, which is great! But a large number of people admins here really do not have the skills or the desire to take it upon themselves to be more "computer savvy", and pretty much act like a computer is a giant typewriters, so they here send me their "mailing lists" typed on labels, at which point I have to merge and sort and de-duplicate them.
Edit- I know I am spewing vitriol, but I have to do this A LOT, and I am constantly saying "at least put in in excel, even if you don't understand access"
