Geek Help?

[purejuice]

I want to make an updatable computer document of botanical info. It would be plants used by Pueblo indians, Navajo and Apache, both Mescalero and Chiricua. Each entry would have perhaps seven or eight components I'd like to have on a horizontal layout listed under column headings, such as Spanish name, Native name, usage, and so on.

I want it to be alphabetical, and I want the software to do the alphabetizing such that the laboriously entered info in the eight or so horizontal cells, ie., usage, Spanish name, etc., moves with the name of the plant as alphabetized by the computer. Excel does not do this reliably, or I don't know how to.

I think Excel, with all its math capabilities, may be way too complicated to learn for this simple problem.

What program (for Mac) should I be using? I am unable to get whatever that faux Excel freeware for Mac is to work for me, to get it out of read only mode, etc. The tutorials on all of them are useless. I'm looking for something that's the lowest tech solution. Got any suggestions? Thanks.

Comments

[pomo-drunkard.livejournal.com]

I have had fairly good luck with Google Spreadsheets, which is free, and relatively easy to use. If you're expecting that the people you're putting this together for will have internet access, it might be the best way to go.

However, Google Spreadsheets is really easy for me because I know how to use Excel. It's less robust and complicated than Excel, but there will definitely still be a learning curve for it.

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

i do not find, on the first five pages of spreadsheets, one that is not conformed to numbers, dates and times. any suggestions?

[pomo-drunkard.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what you're asking. I use Google Spreadsheets to sort text all the time. I use it most often to organize my collection of recipes, which I sort by main ingredient most of the time.

I'm not sure what "the first five pages of spreadsheets" mean. I just open a blank spreadsheet when I start entering data.

The blank spreadsheets have as their default that the top row is "frozen," which means you can make the top row your subject heading: usage, spanish name, etc. These frozen rows can then be sorted either in descending or ascending order, and all the data moves with it, based on what you're sorting.

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

first five google pages.

[pomo-drunkard.livejournal.com]

Ahhh.

If you have a Google account, I'd recommend opening Google Documents and just hitting "Create New/Spreadsheet" to pop open a blank one. You could very quickly see if the set-up is right for you right there.

[the-sikh-geek.livejournal.com]

Excel should do this pretty easily.

P.S. Have you seen what Cat Yronwode has done with the plant usages in African-Amer folk magic?

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

can you suggest a good tutorial for excel?

[the-sikh-geek.livejournal.com]

i don't know much about it and basically learned as a went along. I think the "Sort" function is what you are looking for and should keep everything aligned as it should when you sort the rows alphabetically.

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

well, yes it should, but it didn't.

[pomo-drunkard.livejournal.com]

When you go to sort a column, you might get a warning that reads "Microsoft Office Excel found data next to your selection. Since you have not selected this data, it will not be sorted. What do you want to do?" the options are "Expand the selection" and "continue with the current selection." If you hit "expand the selection," it will sort all data by the heading that you chose. If you continue with the current selection, it will just sort that column.

The other way to do that is to just select the entire group of data, and hit the Sort Button, and then choose what column you want to sort by.

That should keep everything aligned.

[mussare.livejournal.com]

Bento works well for Mac, particularly for the use you're suggesting.

[the-macnab.livejournal.com]

Excel does this reliably once you know how, and it isn't hard to learn. I have OpenOffice on my computer rather than Microsoft Office, but they work almost exactly the same for this.

Assume you have a spreadsheet open. The first row has your column names (Spanish Name, Native Name, Usage and So On) and each row beneath is an entry:


First, click on the empty rectangle to the left of the "A" Column and above the "1" row. This will select the entire spreadsheet. (You can also press CTRL+A for "select all"):


Next, hold down CTRL and click on the "1" that labels the first row. This deselects the first row, leaving the rest of the spreadsheet selected:


Why have you done this? When you ask Excel or any spreasheet program to sort data in a spreasheet, it will sort the selected data. If no data are specifically selected, it assumes that you just want the entire spreadsheet sorted. This is a problem for you, because you don't want it to treat your column names as just another entry; you want them to stay at the top. But you do want the entirety of a row to move when you sort--you don't want, say, just the native names to be alphabetized while the rest of the data stays in place. When you click on a row or column label in Excel (I mean the numerals naming the rows or the letters naming the columns), you select that entire row or column. By selecting the entire spreadsheet and then deselecting the row with the column titles, you are effectively selecting every entire row except the one with those titles. That's what you want to sort.

With that done, go to "Data" and choose "Sort":


Choose which column you want to sort by and how you want it sorted. Right now the data are sorted by Spanish Name, in ascending order (i.e., A-Z rather than Z-A). Say that you wanted to sort by Native Name instead. Choose "Column B" from the drop-down menu and leave "Ascending" selected:


Now click "OK":


Voila: Things are alphabetized by Native Name, and you can verify that all of the data moved along with the native names:


HTH

[anaisdjuna.livejournal.com]

As an aside... Wow. It's really nice for you to do this for her :-)

Kindess is pretty :-)

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

you're adorable, thank you so much.

[pomo-drunkard.livejournal.com]

Nicely done. I would further add that, at least in Excel, if you've Frozen the top row, it will show up in the "Sort By" as "Spanish Name/Native Name/Usage/So On" rather than "Column A/B/C/D."

Add, I would add, a Google Spreadsheet automatically freezes the top row, assuming that most everyone is going to want to set up their spreadsheet in this way. Google Spreadsheet also has a dropdown thing in the frozen column that allows you to do a quick sort, either by alphabetical A-Z or alphabetical Z-A.

[the-macnab.livejournal.com]

I figure that freezing the top row is an additional step that, unless you know how the sort works in the first place, obscures what's going on.

I like that Google does it that way. I still don't recommend their spreadsheets to people because, especially if you're dealing with a non-web-savvy audience, figuring out how to access a Google spreadsheet and "cloud computing" more generally is more confusing than just emailing someone a file. And if you're going to email someone a Google spreadsheet, then you're probably going to export it as Excel. Et cetera.

I think of Excel as a ladder that most people have to climb in order to kick away.

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

thank you.

omigod I love people

[oneroom.livejournal.com]

Hooray!

[tuscendi.livejournal.com]

It seems to me that what you described could best be handled by a simple "TABLE" in your word processing software (Word or WordPerfect). No need to resort to Excel (spreadsheets have all those calculating features that are superfluous to your project) and no need to resort to database programs (Paradox, Q&A, etc.) as they are designed to handle many more bits of information for each "record" (e.g., a plant) than you anticipate needing.

In a simple word processing TABLE, The "rows" can be alphabetized by the first word in the first cell, the name of your plant, automatically. The rows will stay alphabetized as you add and subtract plants.

The cells, components you want to list across under the column headings for each plant, would be kept with the row as the row changed position up or down due to the addition or subtraction of a plant row.

Your "header row" -- the one with the column headings -- can be made (with one click in the Tables menu) to repeat at the top of each page automatically. It's really easy.

The cells will expand as needed while you're entering text. You have the benefit of text editing functions of a word processing program. You can drag the guidelines to increase or decrease the width of a column. You can choose typeface, change font size, use bold, italic, color, etc. You can shade rows and cells for emphasis, legitibility, etc.

However, if you decide you'd really like to be able to track sixteen "components" instead of eight, then a word processing table would be unwieldy, in which case you should use a modest relational database program instead.

In no case, in my opinion, is a spreadsheet appropriate. True, it has cells which can be used to organize text, but it's designed to manipulate that information, to calculate, which gives it way more weight and complexity than you have any use for.

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

thank you for this, and for reading my specs so carefully. excel is almost entirelym superflous and somebody at work recommended this marvelously responsive and low tech table solution. excellent.

[tuscendi.livejournal.com]

Great! You're most welcome. I've whined long and loud about the loss of WordPerfect for DOS, which was such a good workhorse, capable of doing the daily drudgery while at the same time having great power to do the fancy stuff (what macros we had!) and so elegant and so lightweight. But the truth is I couldn't live without Tables. And I've never been able to make friends with Excel.

If I could say one more thing it would be to caution you to think hard about the number of components you're going to want to have.

Eight is already stretching it, because there's only so much space across the page (and do use "landscape" instead of "portrait" page orientation for your Table.).

One final thing about Tables is that if you fill a table with a monstrous amount of data, the program will start balking. There are limitations, though I couldn't say exactly what they are. I've had 80 page tables that still worked but were getting creaky. If that's going to happen, then think database instead.

If you suspect you might want to add more plant characteristics, then you might as well forget tables and construct a database to begin with. The nice thing about a database is that you can add and subtract components all you like as you go along. You can also redesign the configuration of the fields all you like, to make sense of your categories and priorities within each. The data moves with the field, so to speak.

If you make a database, simplify and abbreviate both your labels (field names) and data much as possible. That was you can see all the data in one plant record on one screen without scrolling, and you'll be able to print each plant record out on one page. You don't want a lot of digital clutter wasting a lot of screen real estate or paper.

Okay, now I shut up and go to sleep. Good luck and enjoy the project.

[orso-amoroso.livejournal.com]

wp5.1 users unite!

the transition from 5.1 to 6x was such a tremendous fail.

[tuscendi.livejournal.com]

But if you ARE going to use Excel, this might come in handy:

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/itdojo/?p=1641&tag=nl.e101

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

thank you.