My experience with a lot of users is that (unless one is in accounting)
the progression of learning MS Office is Word, Excel, Powerpoint,
Access. Sometimes users get to Excel and say, "Wow, what a great way
to store data for future use and I can do all sorts of calculations on
it," and it ends there. They accumulate a bunch of data and they can
sort it and search through it but they can't efficiently query it or
produce reports easily. I have had to switch a lot of users from an
Excel "database" to Access when they really wanted to get serious about
a real db. Excel is a spreadsheet program
Flat file dbs are ok for address books and small amounts of data.
As was first mentioned, if you think you'll need to use a spreadsheet,
learn Excel. If you think you'll be doing presentations, learn
Powerpoint. If you think you'll be developing databases, learn Access.
However, I have found that if you don't use it immediately after you
learn it you will be wasting your time unless you want it on a resume.
The key is use it!
Bob Phillips Wrote:
Hi Rodney,

I think that is my point. Excel is NOT a database, however hard many
people
try and make it (including MS in 12?), and a flat file is a flat file.
It
might be able to manage tasks that were originally done by flat files
or
even databases, but it still is not one. A database as I was taught
has
files/tables whatever, and a some form of structure. So to me, a flat
file
database is an oxymoron.

--
HTH

Bob Phillips

(remove nothere from email address if mailing direct)

"Rodney" wrote in message
...
G'day Bob,
Excel is a flat file database, when used as such,
as opposed to a "Relational Database, eg: Access

A flat file database is described by a very simple database model,
where all the information is stored in a plain text file, one
database
record per line. Each record is divided into fields using delimiters
or
at fixed column positions. The data is "flat", as in a sheet of
paper,
as compared to a more complex model such as a relational database.

I use MSWorks for smaller files, but that will only take 32,000
records,
so for larger volume, I have to sneak over to Excel.
The benefits of MSWorks include a learning curve of about 10 minutes
to be up and running, and for small jobs, like organising Local
Cricket
database, record collections, and so forth.
HTH





| What is a flat file database? Sounds like a contradiction to me.






--
jahoobob