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Excel as a Flat File Database

Recall that a database was defined as

a set of data or information organized into one or more categories

Because Excel spreadsheets are set up in rows and grids, many users use that as a way of organizing data.

A Flat File List of Presidents

Consider a history class that may want to refer to a list of U.S. Presidents. With Excel, you can use columns to specify categories about the presidents, then rows for each president.

Fields and Records

This is now a flat-file database file. Each column specifies a field and each row is a record. As you will see in the next page on comma and tab delimited data, an Excel spreadsheet arranged with categories on top and items in rows is ready to be imported into most other database applications.

Sorts

As your list gets longer, you may find that you may want to sort the data by different columns. This can be done by highlighting the information, then going to Data » Sort and specifying a sort column.

Calculations

Excel has many numeric, statistical and text based functions which allow you to generate calculated data based on data in a particular cell. If you add a column in which you perform a function, then you have created a calculated field column.

Charting and Graphs

Advanced users often use the Chart Wizard (go to the Insert » Chart ) to create different sorts of tables and graphs based on data in selected cells.

Thus, Excel gives users many of the basic advantages of electronic databases without the higher learning curve associated with Access, Filemaker and other database applications.

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Teaching Ideas

• Excel can be a good tool for recording data, even if you do not know where it will be stored in the long run. Since many students are familiar with Excel and is available on almost all computers.
• Excel can also be a good way to help students think about how to organize data. Students can use Excel to explore what kinds of categories (columns) they may need to record about data for a project.
• Excel includes some basic statistics functions such as averages which may be beneficial for students to use.

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Advantages and Disadvantages

Although Excel is relatively easy to learn and fairly common, it is recommend only for relatively small sets of data. As data collection becomes more complex, users may find they need to transition to another application.

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Additional Excel Tutorials

• ITS Training
• Web Based Training

Next: Delimited Data
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Last Update: August 1, 2005