Figure 1: Basic Excel Spreadsheet
How to use Excel
How to input terms in the database (including bulk uploads)
How to upload files to the site
Getting the text archive
files
Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet program that helps you organize data. Spreadsheets have rows and columns. They are not scary. :D
Figure 1: Basic Excel Spreadsheet
Please note the basic elements of the Excel spreadsheet (for our purposes, anyway). Each individual square is called a cell. When you click on a row selector, it selects the entire row. For example, clicking on Selector 14 selects Row 14. Same with the column selectors.
The evil sort icons should not be used to sort. If you select a whole column and click one of these sort buttons, it will sort that column only, leaving the other columns intact. That is most unhelpful for our purposes. (Use Data | Sort... from the main menu because it will ask you which column to use to sort the whole shebang.)
The fill icon is used to color in the cells (by row, column, or individually).
Adjusting Cell Size
Roll your cursor over the row or column selectors until it turns to a double arrow, as shown in Figure 2. Click and drag until the column or row is the desired size.
Figure 2: Adjusting Cell Size
Freezing Panes
This does not refer to your windows in December. You can "freeze" panes if you don't want them to move when you scroll. For example, you might want your column headers always visible, no matter where you are in the document.
To freeze the column headers, select Cell A2. From the main menu, select Window | Freeze Panes, as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Selecting Window | Freeze Panes
A black line will appear underneath the column headings, as shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4: Column headers frozen
If you also want to freeze the number column (so the mesage number is always visible when you scroll across), select Cell B2, then select Windows | Freeze Panels. A black vertical line will appear on the right of the Numbers column. When you freeze panels, the black lines will appear on the left and top of the cell you select, as shown in Figure 5.
Figure 5: Excel freezes the panes to the left and above the selected cell.
Filling in the Numbers Column Automatically
Excel can fill in cells automatically if the values follow a pattern Excel can understand. Because the number column will have consecutive numbers, this is a piece of cake for Excel.
First, type in the first two numbers of the series in cells A2 and A3. (Don't use commas for numbers over 1000.) On the lower-right corner of the box is a little black square. Place your cursor over this square. Your cursor will turn into a black cross, as shown in Figure 6.
Figure 6: Fill in the first two
numbers of the series.
Click on the little black box and drag downwards. Let go after a few cells. You can see that Excel is filling in the numbers for you, as shown in Figure 7.
Figure 7: Excel fills in the Number column automatically.
Click on the black box again and pull it as far downward as you need. If your cursor touches the bottom of the screen, it will page down for you at about 1.5 million miles per hour, even after you let go of the mouse button (at least that's how it works in Windows 98). If that happens, curse a bit, hit the Esc button then select the numbers you don't want and hit Delete.
Coloring Rows or Columns
You might want to black out a row for a message that isn't catalog-worthy. You can delete the row if you want (select the desired row selector number and hit Delete), but then the correspondence between the messages numbers and the row numbers will get all skeewompus. (Before final uploading to a database or whatever, you should delete these blacked-out rows.)
To color a row, selet the desired row selector to select the row, as shown in Figure 8.
Figure 8: Selecting a row; the triangle by the Fill icon.
Click on the upside-down triangle next to the Fill icon The color selection menu pops out, as shown in Figure 9.
Figure 9: Color selection menu
Select the desired color. The selected row will fill in with that color. Also notice that the little color bar below the Fill icon has changed to show the color you just selected, as shown in Figure 10. Next time you want to fill in a row, select the row, click directly on the Fill icon, and it will fill in that row automatically.
Figure 10: Default fill color has changed.
Filling In Data
When filling in the cells with data, select a cell and type in whatever you want. Notice that the cell's contents also appear in the Formula window, as shown in Figure 11. If you need to edit the cell's contents (after you've already moved on), you can click once on the cell and edit the contents from the Formula window or double-click in the cell itself and edit from there.
Figure 11: Cell contents in Formula window
You can use the Tab key to go from one cell to the next in the same row (left to right), use the arrow keys to move up, down, left, and right, or use the mouse to select cells.
How to Input Terms into the Database
The Cataloging Topic Terms database holds the types of terms we've found as we've done cataloging. It helps standardize the topics so that FAQers can search more easily.
To access the database, go to Web view for HP4GU-FAQ and select "Database" from the left-hand menu. Then select the Cataloging Topic Terms database, as shown in Figure 12.
Figure 12: Select Cataloging Topic Terms database
Viewing the Terms
To see which words have been entered, page through with the Next and Previous links. You can also click Export Table, and your browser will produce a list of all the words in the database. However, the words will not be in alphabetical order. If you want to put them in alphabetical order, copy and past the list into Word. Use Ctrl + H to produce the Find and Replace dialog box. Type the double quotation marks in the top field and leave the bottom field empty, as shown in Figure 13. Click Replace All, click OK when it's done, and click Cancel to get rid of the Find and Replace dialog box.
Figure 13: Getting rid of the quotation marks.
Now use Ctrl + A to select the whole document. From the main menu, select Table | Sort …. The Sort Text dialog box appears. The default settings should be the correct ones, as shown in Figure 14. Click OK. The list should now be sorted.
Figure 14: Sorting the List
Adding Terms One by One
If you have only a few terms to enter, you can enter them one at a time by clicking either Add Record link at the top or bottom of the list, as shown in Figure 15:
Figure 15: Add Record links.
Type in the term in the space provided and click Save Record, as shown in Figure 16.
Figure 16: Entering data.
The term will automatically be sorted alphabetically.
If you have several terms and don't want to enter them one at a time, do the following:
In a document such as Word or Notepad, put the list of words you want to add in a single column with a hard return at the end of each term, like this:
Put-Outer
Final Battle
Nimbus 2000
SOPE
War
Justice
Slavery
Life Debt
Duelling
Shrieking Shack
They don't have to be in any particular order.
After you've selected the "Cataloging Topic Terms" database, click "Import Records." A big square field called "Data" appears, as shown in Figure 17.
Figure 17: Data in the data field
Cut and paste your terms into this field and click "Import Data." All your terms get put into the database, slick as a whistle.
How
to Upload Files to the Site
In Web view, click Files on the left-hand menu. Then click the folder in which you want to put your work. ("InProgress") Click "Add File." You should get two fields and a button called "Browse," as shown in Figure 18.
Figure 18: Add File fields
Click Browse and look for where you've put your file. (I recommend saving it where it's easy to find.) Select your document and click the Open button, as shown in Figure 19.
Figure 19: Selecting the file to upload.
Your filename should appear in the top window. In the bottom window, type "XXX's cataloging to date" or some such thing, as shown in Figure 20, and click "Upload File."
Figure 20: Filling in the second field
When it's time to upload an updated copy of the file, you'll have to delete the previous copy. Yahoo won't overwrite files. Use the delete button next to your file (on the far right) to delete your file. Then upload the updated copy the same as with the original.
Getting the Text Archive Files
Select the file group you need from the list below:
For example, if you needed files 37,000–37,999, you would click on the third link. This link takes you to the page shown in Figure 21.
Figure 21: Second level of the directory.
Then you would select the folder m32000-39999. That link takes you to the page shown in Figure 22.
Figure 22: The .zip files
Then you would select the file m37000-37999. The Save As dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 23.
Choose the directory where you want to download the file (recommended: click the Desktop icon and save on the desktop where it's easy to find.) Click Save. Be patient (depending on the speed of the connection, the download could take awhile.
When the download is complete, locate the .zip file that you just downloaded. Double-click it to open it in WinZip, as shown in Figure 24.
Figure 24: The archive file in WinZip
Click on the file and drag it onto your desktop. Open Word, select File | Open, find the file on your desktop, and open it. Select File | Save As… and save it as a .doc file. Off you go!