Thanks BJ, but the issue is that csv type files like to just dump data serially as it receives it, creating new rows when it sees a line ending. This means that the users have to move the data around like you mentioned, and we were hoping to avoid that. Plus, our records wind up in columns and the csv would place them in rows (I guess I could re-build that somehow before exporting).

I was hoping that (somehow...) I could "tag" the data and tell Excel where to put it within a spreadsheet.

Thanks.



On Mar 2, 2005, at 1:09 PM, Bj wrote:

1. The easy peasy way is to export the date as a csv (comma separated
variable) file. Write some php to read data from mysql and create a file
with a .csv file extension in this kind of format:


Name,City,Age,Children
"Sara Brooks",Chicago,25,0
"Pete Yates",Reading,27,2

ftp the file or have the script email to you or download it from a link,
just get it onto your desktop. Now open Excel and at the File Open dialog,
set file type to "All files" or "Text files (.txt, .prn, .csv)"


When you open the file, Excel will fairly simply read it into a spreadsheet
where you can analyse it, sort it or whatever you want . Just make sure
strings in the data are enclosed in single or double quotes (and watch out
quotes inside the string!)


2. I never got it to work cos I didn't try hard enough, but there's
something called myAccess that runs on your desktop and manages your mySQL
database on the Web site as a local Access database, and Access of course
has excellent reporting facilities, see http://www.hiden.org/myaccess/


----- Original Message -----
From: "steve miller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2005 4:30 PM
Subject: [wdvltalk] making pretty reports


Hi all.

Looking for suggestions.

We have lots of data in mysql on a BSD box. We are looking for a way to
output the data, and insert it into some application where we have set
up report templates to be able to view and print the reports.


Right now, we manually enter all the data into Excel spreadsheets and
use Excel to create the formatted reports. What we want to do is export
the mysql data from the BSD box to the desktop, and somehow open the
template and import the data into the correct fields. Is this possible?
Are there other ways to do something like this?


Any ideas to get me headed the right way are appreciated.

steve


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