Problems because of varying size of fields.

[Guest]

I had been using tables (Word) as a text database but had reached 150 pages
and feared that I would soon come into trouble because of the size in spite
of the fact that the table could still be sorted without difficulties. I was
advise to use Eccell or Access instead. The database consists of text only
but in two of the fields the contents are of a varying word number and
varying line number. That gave problems as the database then could not be
sorted. And also a much more time consuming tasak of entering new posts: In
Word tables I could just enter new posts anyware and subsequently sort the
table. Now I have to find the correct site in the database before entering a
new post.
I obviously need a program without a lot of facilities but for sorting text
and allowing a great number of posts (at the present time I have appr. 3500)
- and also allowing varying numbers of Words to be entered in the same row.
What can I do?

 

[Al Camp]

With 3500 records, or possibly even more... Access would be the best bet.
You may have to do a bit of "overhead" labor to convert, but the savings in
the future will be worth it.

- and also allowing varying numbers of Words to be entered in the same
row.

Not quite sure what you mean by that. If you want to give more details
about your Word records (Samples) and explanation of what the data means, we
can go from there.
hth
Al Camp
Candia Computer Consulting - Candia NH
http://home.comcast.net/~cccsolutions

 

[Guest]

Thank you for answering so promptly. My database consists of 1. An italian
word, the next column its type, the next column its pronunciation, the next
column its translation - and here a varying number of words will have to be
intered, next column examples of use of the word - and here a still more
varying number of words have to be entered.

It is essentially a text database - needs only the facility to sort
alphabetically. That is why tables in Words work so well.

 

[Douglas J. Steele]

When you say "a varying number of words" for the translation, are you saying
because there's more than 1 possible translation, or because you need to use
a phrase in English to translate the Italian word?

For the former, you shouldn't be storing them as separate columns, each
should be a separate row in a second table. For the latter, you can store up
to 255 characters in a text field in Access. If that's not enough, you can
use a Memo field instead.

You might want to take a look at
http://www.databaseanswers.org/data_models/dictionaries_for_foreign_languages/index.htm
for one suggestion of how your tables should look.

 

[Guest]

More than one possible translation. I, in the meantime - in spite having
tried so many times - seem to have some success in Excel when unmerging the
sheetad subsequently changing all the rows to have the same heigth. At least
sorting functions OK. I will look into the last given reference also. Thanks
both of You!