Advice wanted making a searchable document database

[GuyMassey]

I hope someone may be able to help me to set up a database.

We have thousands of family documents in a County Museum Archive dating back to the 16th Century. These have been listed on hundreds of random sheets of A4 with a brief written description of content, date and archive reference.

For many years my wife has been trying to get these into order and now wants to enter the details into a fully searchable database so that a name, location or similar search will give her all the information contained in the archive on the subject. This "master" would then be given to members of our family to help them identify documents in the repository.

I have been advised against Excel for various reasons but mainly because apparently it is not fully searchable.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

[Midase]

One problem here is that all family members would need to have the same software installed on their machines. The only software that I am aware of is Filemaker and it's not cheap. Some one may be along soon to advise on another approach.

[Gaie]

Hi

Why not use Access, part of the Microsoft Office job lot that includes Excel and Word (is it MS Office Suite?)?  At least a lot of people will have it installed already, or they may have a student in the house who has it or who can buy it on the cheap (MS do special deals for students)

Gaie

Added:  You can try it for free for 60 days:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/try/?WT%2Emc_id=ODC_enGB_Office_Try

[emarbe]

As Midase has already mentioned, everyone who wants to access the information would need the same software, one alternative is to publish it to the web, Filemaker Pro can do this but the standard version will only allow access to 5 users and it is only available while the host computer is connected to the net, the alternative is the Server version.

I currently use version 10 (on a Mac) which is more than adequate for my needs and you might find one for sale on the net.
Even for a relatively straightforward database it can take quite a while to get the hang of it, but it's worth it in the end.

Mike

[RJ_Paton]

If you are going to go the database route it may be worthwhile having a look at Libre Office ( http://www.libreoffice.org ) which a free Office Suite of Programs. Being free it has the advantage that family members would not have to make any large purchases to view the information in addition to which there are versions available for Windows Mac & Linux

LibreOffice is the power-packed free, libre and open source personal productivity suite for Windows, Macintosh and GNU/Linux, that gives you six feature-rich applications for all your document production and data processing needs: Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Math and Base.

[arthurk]

Why not use Access, part of the Microsoft Office job lot that includes Excel and Word (is it MS Office Suite?)?

"Home and Student" versions of the Office suite don't include Access - it's only in the much more expensive business versions.

Arthur

[mhg]

The most powerful free (open source) database package is MySQL.  However, this takes a bit of setting up so I wouldn't recommend it unless you have some database experience.

I use Libre Office, which is much easier to use and distribute databases to others.  It can import from and export to Microsoft Access if you need to.  That way you can share data with anyone who has that.  Also, you can export searched data to an Excel file or to a web page.

[Guy Etchells]

If saved as pdf files then it is possible to search a file, folder or hard drive for any particular word or phrase.
That would save re-keying into a database.
Cheers
Guy

[Paul Caswell]

I know you have been advised against Excel and to an extent you are right that Excel is not the best option for searching but bear with me a moment.

If you enter all the data in Excel you will then be able to export it in almost any format you like. It is also accessible in Access and you could probably even generate HTML from it with a little work. You can copy and paste it into a PDF, the possibilities are endless.

Modern versions of Excel have an excellent filter facilities. I have all of the OPC data for Corfe Castle and a 5-mile radius surrounding it in an Excel spreadsheet (Births, Marriages and Deaths in separate tabs). I can filter this data and just expose my Stockleys or search for almost anyone instantly.

I would recommend excel. Bear in mind you will probably spend more time entering the data than searching it. Choose something that is easy to enter data with. Once the data is entered, pick a route to take. Export it to Access, generate csv for import into MySQL, whatever you like!

How many records are you talking about? If it's less that about 32,000 then you would spend more time fiddling around with the UI than getting the data typed.

Good luck.

Paul