User Form and database

[TotallyConfused]

First time I am working with User Form in Excel. I am trying to understand
and I am sorry if I ask stupid questions. My form will be emailed out and or
printed. When form is returned with data I need to have this data exported
to database to be tracked. What would be the steps to put this together?

 

[JLatham]

Well, I'm a bit confused myself.
You say you'll either email or printout the form. When emailed, what type
of file will you be emailing?
How will the information be returned to you, and in what form (file format)?

If you using USPS mailings, obviously the data is going to come back to you
in a form that's going to require data entry to get the information off of
the form and into your database. Also, specify what type of database are you
using? Excel as a database or something like Access?

I think if it were me, I'd probably use a simple .txt file format to send
out the form for completion and work up a routine to 'parse' the returned
..txt file to obtain the information provided at the other end. Having other
options ($$$ spent in the past), I'd probably choose a way to handle returned
snail-mail forms via OCR and again a parsing routine in Excel to get the
provided data. But most people would simply have to take the returned
printouts and hand-enter the data into the database.

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HelpFrom @ jlatham site . com