should I use Excel or Access?

  • Thread starter Thread starter pdb
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pdb

Maybe a dumb question but I want to design a form that I can use (and email
to others to use) to make CDs. I would have the following info in the table:

Genre Era Group name Album title Song title File size (in MB)
example
Pop 80's Journey Escape Stone in love 55.34

In the form I would have a few filters or series of filters, and after
selecting the track you would click 'add' and it would be added to a list,
add up the total amount of MB and on the form display how much space is
left. (700 - the total) I have much more experience in Excel than Access but
I am not sure this can be done in Excel. Any suggestions would help. TIA
Paul
 
It's just as easy in one as the other. If you're more familiar with Excel,
do it in Excel.

Setup you filter lists (I assume genres, era, groups etc.) as named ranges
on a worksheet, and just reference these in your Rowsource property of the
listbox say.

I would also suggest you add up time and set your max (75 mins?) rather than
Mb, who measures music in Mbs.

--

HTH

Bob Phillips
... looking out across Poole Harbour to the Purbecks
(remove nothere from the email address if mailing direct)
 
yeah I know but time/space is not absolute. A four minute song is ABOUT
40MB, but it varies so you might not be able to put more than 70 minutes of
music but you may squeeze 80 as advertised depending on the music put on the
CD. Probably I'll just convert 170Kb into 1 second and it will be on the
high side. Also I usually fade songs allowing another 30 - 60 seconds.
 
You may want to check with the people who'll be using your form. If they don't
have one of the programs, it might make your decision easier.

You could include an extra column that the user puts an X in if they want it
selected:

Then you could use a formula like:
=sumif(a2:a999="x",g2:g999)

It may not look as pretty as the form, but it'll be a lot simpler to implement.

But won't you have to worry about the overhead for each file when you burn the
CD. (I don't do it enough to worry about--or is that why you stopped at 700MB?)
 
If I understand it correctly that would display the sum if they put an X
there? So it would just be a large worksheet then?

I don't know how to make it add a selection. ( have an 'add' button and once
they click on it, it will take the entire rows information and place it on
another table or something. This is where I think I am mostly lost......
 
That's what I was hoping the formula would do.

But change my formula to something more like this:

=SUMIF(A1:A999,"x",G1:G999)

(sorry about the typo!)

And you could apply Data|filter|autofilter to show whatever was important.

(I'd put the total formulas at the top (row 1), headers in row 2 and data
starting in row 3.

Window|freeze panes so that Rows 1 and 2 are always visible (and maybe so that
column A is always visible).

If you wanted to copy that range of selected songs, you could filter by the X,
and copy those visible cells to a new worksheet--but if it's filtered, you may
not even want to copy it.

And if you're doing multiple cd's, you could use a different letter or change
all the X's to "done". That way you'll have a record (so to speak <bg>).
 
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