Collection database ? what?s yours like?

[Tina]

Hi Lindsey

How are you?, at least you are singing in tune :~))) LOL

[sandi]

Wow

This song of yours is sooo good and so true.

Lennon would be proud of you.

Sandi

[Bill]

There are several options to pictures in Excel the easiest is a simple hyperlink from the plant name to a picture as a seperate file. Right click on the cell where you want the link and select "hyperlink", then in the "look in" box navigate to the file.

An altogether more elegant solution is to use comments.

Create a blank comment, right click on the cell where you want the image and select "Insert Comment" delete any text that appears in it.

Then right click on the cell and select "Show Comment".

Then Ctrl+click on the comment, right click on the shaded border select "Format Comment".

Select the "Colours and Lines" tab and choose "Fill Effects" from the bottom of the "Colour" Dropdown box.

From the "Fill Effects" select the "Picture" tab navigate to the file location and select picture and close the dialog boxes.

You may need to resize the comments box to suit your image. Finaly right click again and select hide and voila pop up pictures :-)
If my instructions don't work do a Google search on Excel image comments, should bring up some pages with illustrated instructions.

The end result should look something like this:



Post Edited (12-07-06 20:19)

[Chris43]

Hey Bill, thats a great way of doing it. Obviously a bit more lengthy that the hyperlink approach- which is what I've been using, but so much more effecive, no need for separate windows etc. I've been using Excel for a while and using comments, but didn't know that this was available. Perfect. Many thanks.

[Julie]

I have a diary with the dates I bought each plant, dates repotted and so on.

I keep a chart of measurements for each forby (height and circumference) and for baby M. gracillis just height. When he branches and flowers those will get put down too.

Seeds have each a page with date fertilised, collected, both parents, if known, if there were one or three seeds in the pod, and did the pod fall off or go pop? On one occasion, a pod accidentally fell off in my hand when I found a pregnant forby in a garden centre! Whoops! Well, the seeds would have gone on the floor and never had the chance to grow.

I've also got plenty of photos on the computer, with dates.

[Phil Hocking]

I haven't started a database yet as until recently I didn't have Excel, Access, Word etc. Now I have discovered OpenOffice, a free to download office suite, so I will be able to do it now. I have a lot to learn though - does anyone else have OpenOffice? Can you put photos on the database?

Somerset Phil

[iann]

You can insert a picture directly into a cell in OpenOffice, although it kind of "floats" and is just attached to a cell or page. You can completely independantly have normal contents in the cell. You can also link out to external files. You can also do the same thing that Bill describes, although the menu options are all different!

[Bill]

Although I use Firefox and Thunderbird all the time, I haven't used OpenOffice for a while as work supplied me with a copy of Office 2003. But as Ian says the answer is yes, OpenOffice does almost everything Office does but it's free and uses up far less space on you HDD than Office.

[Maria J]

Yes I've just acquired openoffice on my personal laptop! I wanted all the options office gives without the microsoft price tag!! So far, I've found it very easy to use although haven't yet explored it fully. What's also great is that files can be saved as 'xls' which means I can transfer it to work & open it in Excel should I need to!.
I haven't yet explored the Access equivalent though; anyone else had a go with it?

Thanks Bill for the info on the pictures. I shall save it on a doc for easy referral!!

[Phil Hocking]

Hi Maria

I haven't had a serious go at it yet but there is a wizard in OpenOffice 'Base' for plants (under personal, as opposed to business, tables). Just select the fields you want in the order you want them and off you go by the look of it.

Phil