Genealogy Chat

Hi Rick Yes the formatting of the cells is preserved. The reason I asked about the CSV file is cos I got the impression it had to be saved as one of these in order to send it off. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I've just about got the hang of it now after losing all 6 pages that I'd transcribed. lol. You live and learn. Have a good weekend and thanks for the help. Jeanette

Hi Jeannette, I don't know Works, but the principal should be the same. Open the downloaded blank.csv the format it and same as blank.??? where ??? is the file extension that Works uses. I would have thought that Works does this automatically - Excel does. Open blank.??? and start transcribing, but save it as RGxxxx.??? where RGxxxx is your piece number from cell A1. That was you still have your blank files if you ever need them again. I don't think you can actually do anything too wrong if you think about it though. If your data is going into the csv file, you're not losing your work and you can always get another blank file down from freecen. Does the formatting of the cells get preserved when you re-open the csz or do have to do it every time ? I have to hit the M4 now. Back Sunday if you need more help then ! Rick.

Hi Rick Carol is my co-ordinator - I'm doing the West Riding for now - but Jo has sent me the names of 2 people I can contact for help. My daughter informs me that I'm using works as it says microsoft works spreadsheet at the top of the page. Doh! Why didn't I see that? Jeanette the blind dinosaur!

Hi Jeanette, Is Carol the co-ordinator for your census area then or are you just talking to her because of the GC connection. Mine's a bloke called Terry and hew sent me another contact's details too. I think all the co-ordinators are listed by area on the freecen site. Are you using Excel too ? Rick.

Just got an email from jo re co-ordinators. But I'd still like to know if the CSV file is ok. Cheers! Thanks Jo!

Hi Rick Can I pcik yor brains now? lol The cd's still not working properly but I thought I'd transcribe a bit anyway to get the hang of it. Do you know if there's another co-ordinator we can contact in the absence of Carol? By the way, I did everything you just explained to Susie but saved it as a CSV file. Is that ok? Jeanette

Of course, no problem ! Are you OK what you need to do on page 2 ? You just carry on adding rows below page one - you change the page number every page and the folio number every 2 pages. I'll check this thread again later if you need more help. Rick ;-)

rick i think so...lol white will be fine...cheers if i get any more hassle can i contact you again...please susie

Got a drop of white in the fridge - shall we celebrate ? Right, so all you need to do is call the file after the name of the piece you are transcribing. Open up your blank.xls file with your data in it and click File, Save As and type the contents of cell A1 into the filename. For me this is RG91456. This will also leave your old blank.xls, but don't use that once you've successfully got your RGxxxx.xls file created. With me ? Rick.

rick yes!!! hooray lol...thankyou so much,i was in despair susie ps..got any red wine left from your binge the other nite lmao susie

Yes, I think it does ! So the original csv file is intact and your first page is type into another file called blank.xls in your "My Documents" folder ? Does that sound right to you ? Rick.

rick ive just opened microsoft excel in my programmes and then opened file it is identical to the blank csv that i downloaded from freecen does this mean that im getting there lol susie

At the top left of the window that Excel opens up in does it say "Microsoft Excel - blank.xls" or something similar ?

rick yes,i just double clicked(left hand)and it opened it is also in excel it has all letters and marks (like the demo one ) across the the first 3 lines susie

You're not thick & as Chris Tarrant always says it's only easy if you know the answers ! OK - so how did you "open up" the blank file - just by double-clicking on it ? Did it come up in Excel ? Rick.

rick i just typed it in lol i have got excel but i have never used a spreadsheet and dont know where to start. im beginning to think im really thick here...lol everyone else seems to know exactly wat to do,why dont i:( susie

Hi Susie, It's not quite what the instructions said to do ! Don't despair though - we'll sort it out. Do you know what I mean by your spreadsheet program ? I'm trying to find out how you put the data in the blank.csv file. Rick.

hi rick i have put all the info straight oto the blank csv.is that wrong? i didnt realise that it could be put onto anything else susie

Hi Susie, OK, the first thing is that you transcribe the whole piece into one big file. I don't know what spreadsheet software you use - I use Excel which writes files with an xls file extension - so you may need to adjust these instructions a bit. I think all of these intructions were in the various readme files & bumph that we downloaded. I completely ignored the bit about the floppy disk, but otherwise followed them I put everything I downloaded into a folder called FCTOOLS off the root of my c: drive & extracted all the compressed files. I then opened the blank.csv file, did the formatting of the columns, locked the title rows and then saved it as blank.xls in the same folder. I then typed the stuff in the two cells on the first row and then did a File, Save As RG91456.xls - this names the file after the piece you've working on and keeps both your blank.csv and your blank.xls intact. I guess this is the bit you didn't suss out ? Don't worry though, all it means is that your blank.xls has your real data in it. All you need to do is rename it to match the number of the piece you are transcribing (same as the contents of cell A1). Let me know if you get this far OK & I'll tell you what to do next !!! It's all gonna be OK ;-) Rick.

hi everyone ive transcribed the first page of my cd(as well as the sample pge)..durr i have saved in my docs went to start the 2nd page but my blank is now full of the 1st pge...following me??? do i have to down load another blank???? im confused here and need some advice also wat do i put in the folio column and page column susie