[NTLK] How to import psion files ? (excel, *.mdb)

From: Stefan Hassenstein (list.SH_at_gmx.de)
Date: Sun Feb 17 2002 - 16:12:27 EST


Honorable list !

take my apologies at first for this bit lengthy expose....
but it takes some words to sketch out the scenario.

by chance i recently stepped from a
mid-sized hospital into a university.
A vast number of mostly young people
run around with a Psion.

Friendly as they are, they sent me some
bulky files with useful stuff on it.

To go into details:

sitting on a MacOS 8.6 (PM 7600)
with a recent established (!!) ethernet
connection to a MPk21.

got excel spreadsheets and output of
Access Database program (*.mdb)

Q: any way to read such a .mdb database on the mac ?

They sent me some kind of a telephone-book,
in the spreadsheet divided into 3 columns,
consisting of about 40 departments, each of them
inheriting a variable number of associated peoples
and pagers.
(each department starting a new row with all assoc.
packed into one big cell)

This structure reminds me on a recently discussed topic

At 17:39 Uhr -0500 01.02.2002, Marcy wrote:
>I use MoreInfo but the problem is with the fact that I use Affiliates Plus
>(an add-on program). What it does is you can list a company with many
>"affiliates" at that company (ie. Tom, Dick and Harry). So that is one
>listing on my Newt. Whereas without those programs: Tom, Dick and Harry at
>ABC Company would be three listings in Palm Desktop, Now Contact, and Claris
>Organizer. SO... I don't know how to do it.

Q: - Would Affiliates Plus be of any help ?
    - Where to get it ?

Wether or not it could help me, i think i have to
put some serious work on these files before ahead.
When looking with MS Exxel at them, i see unprintable
chars as dividers between the associated people all
pressed into *one* field.
I have to find a way to seperate this big one field
into individuals.
(looking for this unprint ASCII(6), snipping, put the rest into
a field and ...again.)

big Q: - Anybody of this list (on a Mac) having done some
procedural string/text crunching ?
I am unsure which prog would be of easiest use ?
- Alpha
- BBedit
- Frontier (by Userland)
or should it be done in Word / Exxel ?
(non-expert in programming)

Another spreadsheet is kind of a textbook of drugs:
13 columns per each describe a drug (name, generic name,
indication, contraindication, dosage....),
again, amount of text pressed into each field varies.

Q: which database could handle this best on the Green ?

- would like to give Accordian a try...
AFAIK its version number is 1.0, it depends on Filemaker 3
(has anybody an URL for FM 3 ?),
it depends on a non-appletalk connection, but maybe this
could be worked around by X-port.
Or would FMproCompanion be the solution ?

- or would should it be Leverage ?
- or Filepad ?

- notion is fine, but not searchable !

(big sigh...)

to clarify, my most important questions:

        - any chance to import from a Access *.mdb file (ODBC stuff needed ?)

        - recommandation for procedural text working ?

        - recommandation for a db-prog to handle mostly text (searchable)
          and/or records with variable item length

Thanks a lot for reading so far !
and for any input,

best greetings,
Stefan

-- 
Stefan Hassenstein - stef_at_orpheus.s.bawue.de

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