If you can send output from RECORDER to a spreadsheet such as Excel you are able to

By sending the selected records or the results of a particular RECORDER report to a spreadsheet (such as Excel) you can manipulate and sort you data in many powerful ways.

To Export records from RECORDER to a table in Excel

From RECORDER Main Menu go to Reports>Record Selection

Fill in the details to select the records you want to export. F9 runs the selection, then save the list with a name of your choice.

Now quit and go to Filters>Get List and type in Name of list and press [return]

Then follow Reports>Special reports & maps>Export ASCII text

At the LRC Export window, type the following:

Table name = records

Columns  - Press F2 to choose all the columns you wish to export. Save this selection with F9.

Give it DOS file name default: C:\Recorder\output\export.txt (or any more memorable file name so long as it is a .txt file in Recorder Output

Format select: "Generic spreadsheet"

Multivalues: accept default which returns just the first value of any multivalued field such as collector. If you wish you can convert multivalues into a comma delineated string. (This is prefarable to aving multivalued fields appearing in separate rows in the spreadsheet as this can hinder subsequent sorting of data.)

F9 runs the export process

Now start Excel.

Click on the yellow folder, or select File>Open

In "Look in", get C:\Recorder\Output

Choose files of type .txt

Click on export.txt

In Import Wizard, choose "Delimited"  and File origin =" Windows (ANSI)"

Click "Next"

Tick "Comma" to indicate the field delimiter and select Text qualifier = "

Click "Next" if you want to change the Column Data Format, then "Finish" to open the file.

Importing into Quattro-Pro

Notebook
     Text import
     Comma and "delineated
     Filename (needs to be whole string c:\recorder\output\export.txt)
     OK

Based on notes supplied by John Bratton.

Redirecting RECORDER Outputs from Printer to Disk

Any RECORDER report which would normally be sent to a printer can be redirected to your hard drive or to a floppy disk. From there it can be opened in a Word Processor or spreadsheet.

To redirect printer output to to a pre-existing sub-directory on your PC:

At TCL [F5] type PDISK   now type in the full DOS pathway. Eg C:\REPORTS\MYFILE.TXT

Now run your RECORDER report as normal.

Once complete, go back to TCL and type PDISK PRN   This closes the file and allows future reports to be sent to the printer as normal.

Note that if you plan to import this type of file into a spreadsheet it will already have some degree of layout inherent within it. You will therefore need to set File Type as "Fixed Width"  The import wizard in Excel allows you to move the column breaks around to ensure you create coulumns that best match you data, rather than simply based on the first row it sees.

Nick Moyes

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