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

[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.