alternatives to cut and paste?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Curious George the Monkey
  • Start date Start date
C

Curious George the Monkey

Hi,

I have a database where I am entering in 1000's of pages of information
by copying it from another document.

But I can't simply do a CUT and PASTE using the mouse, or the
control V and control B keys.

Is there anyway to make the cut key and paste key by assigning it to
something such as only the alt key and shift key ?

Thanks
 
Curious said:
Hi,

I have a database where I am entering in 1000's of pages of
information by copying it from another document.

But I can't simply do a CUT and PASTE using the mouse, or the
control V and control B keys.

Is there anyway to make the cut key and paste key by assigning it to
something such as only the alt key and shift key ?

There are some programs that allow reassigning keys but the results are the
same.
My Microsoft mouse has additional keys that can be assigned functions and I
can (but never remember to) cut and paste with them.

I assume you know that Access can import files that are delimited in some
way and that if these documents are arranged in any regular order it is
possible to write code to parse them.
 
Hi,

I have a database where I am entering in 1000's of pages of information
by copying it from another document.

Are these *documents* - as in Word files or other types of text files?
Or are they multiple records in an Access table, or are they multiple
Access tables?
But I can't simply do a CUT and PASTE using the mouse, or the
control V and control B keys.

Is there anyway to make the cut key and paste key by assigning it to
something such as only the alt key and shift key ?

Cut and paste is rarely the method of choice for moving data into or
out of Access. There is instead a whole set of tools for Importing and
Exporting data into and from tables or queries. You can also write VBA
code using the various Transfer methods to migrate data. If you could
explain the nature of these documents, someone might be able to
suggest a better alternative than manual cut and paste!

John W. Vinson[MVP]
 
John,

The data is on a website, each page has 1 record of data with about 20
feilds. To top it off
I think its written in java. Thus to put the client records off the website
I have to visit each
webpage one by one.

The mouse idea looks interesting, but there must be an easier way, my poor
fingers
are ruined after 8 hours of cutting and pasting.

thanks
 
Curious said:
John,

The data is on a website, each page has 1 record of data with about 20
feilds. To top it off
I think its written in java. Thus to put the client records off the
website I have to visit each
webpage one by one.

The mouse idea looks interesting, but there must be an easier way, my
poor fingers
are ruined after 8 hours of cutting and pasting.

thanks


Can you contact the source and maybe they can e-mail you the data?
 
Joe,

I have tried all that, this is a serious problem.

Maybe Microsoft should solve it.

E
 
Curious George the Monkey said:
John,

The data is on a website, each page has 1 record of data with about 20
feilds. To top it off
I think its written in java. Thus to put the client records off the
website I have to visit each
webpage one by one.

The mouse idea looks interesting, but there must be an easier way, my
poor fingers
are ruined after 8 hours of cutting and pasting.

If you're handy with programming, you can use the Internet Transfer
Library posted here:

http://www.mvps.org/access/modules/mdl0037.htm

to programmatically visit each URL in turn, download the page, and save
it wherever you like.
 
Curious said:
Joe,

I have tried all that, this is a serious problem.

Maybe Microsoft should solve it.

If you have "tried all this" it may be a serious problem but not one
Microsoft needs to solve (again)

You did not respond to the question about contacting the owner of the
material.
 
Curious George the Monkey said:
Joe,

I have tried all that, this is a serious problem.

Maybe Microsoft should solve it.

Curious George the Monkey said:
John,

The data is on a website, each page has 1 record of data with about 20
feilds. To top it off
I think its written in java. Thus to put the client records off the
website I have to visit each
webpage one by one.

Why don't you spend some time learning how to use the winsock control, or
even the web activeX control. There is absolute NO reason for you to be
using cut and paste. You have all this incredible technology at your
disposal, and you are wasting hours and hours by cutting and pasting one by
one. If you are working for your employer, and you have to pick up some
paper at the store, and you decide to walk while there is a several cars
available, then you are in fact wasting many valuable hours of your
employer. resources. You should be competent enough to know when to use a
car to pick up paper as opposed to spending the whole day walking to the
store to get that paper. In many companies, this kind of wastage is grounds
for dismissal.

There is a certainly point when wasting so many resources of your employer,
that you are liable for wasting your employer dollars. You owe yourself, and
your employer the honesty of a least having competent people to do a
particular job. Cutting and pasting records from a web site one by one is
WORSE then walking when a car is available. You need some serous
re-evaluating of your use of technology here. Where I come from, people who
do things like waste 8 hours of the employers time is grounds for dismissal.

And, if this is a personal project, then you just wasted 8 hours that you
could have given to charity, or other good causes to make the world
a better place.

I don't know how large of a job this is, or how many names/pages you need to
copy. However, the fact that you seem un-willing to contact the web vendor
kind of hints that the information you are taking is being miss-used
(however, I have no idea here).

Anyway, lets get back on topic here. I would also consider cutting and
pasting a WHOLE PAGE at a time, and then writing some code to parse the
data.
At least this would speed things up by 20 times (or however many names are
on a page).

Regardless, your current approach is one of incompetence, and the money and
time you are wasting could have been better used to help the needy and the
poor of the world instead of you getting sore fingers.

Something is SERIOUSLY wrong here in both the approach used, the waste of
time
and energy, and the fact that the data cannot be given to you in a more
usable format. You need to get some people who understand this technology,
and realize the MANY possible solutions as opposed to trying to speed up
cutting and pasting. It is as if you are asking how you can walk
faster...when a car is available for your use!

The approaches here are all wrong, and you need to spend some time obtaining
a better solution...not how to speed up cut and paste...
 
Hi Everyone,

Firstly, I am not wasting time and I didn't ask for help on this group
without evaluating the
potential solutions. You need to understand the situation more.

Ofcourse I tried to ask the website/vendor for different records, they DO
NOT supply
this type of data and will not for any price. The website is also up
temporarily, and they
indicated that I must cut and paste each record as the only possible
solution. Its highly
sensitive and valuable marketing data that is also available in print form.

I would have outsourced the job to China/India to have it cut and pasted for
$100? maybe
for 1-2 weeks labor.

Secondly I am the owner of the company.

Also, simply cutting the entire page and writing code wont work becuase
there needs to
be a brain behind the organization of the data, about 10% of the data has
errors in the
feilds such as address mixed up with contact name.

I will try the other information some of you suggested, one issue however is
to use the
active X control or winsock control. But by the time I learn this stuff, I
could probably
finish the copying which is projected at 4 days work. I am not a computer
science
major.

I will also try the other options.

Thanks
 
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