Golding and all, I think quite a few folks are confusing some of the software programs out there than can be helpful in tracking genealogy records. While Microsoft is the industry leader in "Office" suites there are other programs that do these tasks as well and some may already be pre-installed on a computer. It all depends on what was included during the purchase. Corel is the current owner of WordPerfect which is their version of Word. Corel also has Quattro Pro which is their version of Excel. Microsoft also sells Access which is a true database and Corel uses Paradox. IBM owns Lotus Approach which is equivalent to Access and Paradox. Sun systems has a free office suite called OpenOffice. The choices are endless. While I deal with all of these products on a daily basis I can tell you that they are almost identical to each other in functionality and there are very minor differences in the way their screens look and the terminology they use. While this can all be very intimidating for the novice user these programs come with built in tutorials and you can always create a dummy file to play around with before trying things on your "live" data. It's pretty easy to do and you can quickly get the hang of it. Now Microsoft has a free program that they give away on most PC's called MS Works. That includes stripped down versions of their word processor, spread sheet and database. Its free and for very basic tasks it works but you're limited in functionality and file compatibility. These companies don't want you using other companies software so they make it difficult on purpose to exchange data between programs. It's not impossible just not encouraged. Word is a word processor that handles basic function in tables & charts. For sorting data it can do that but its cumbersome. For searching data its very impractical. Excel is a spreadsheet that is excellent for sorting data and doing basic searches. However if you have a large list of rows and columns of data and you need to pick out groups of people by different values in these rows and columns a database is your program which Microsoft calls Access. All that's basically involved with setting up a database is on a piece of paper writing down the names of the fields you would like to capture (the more fields the easier to search). So instead of using "name" as a field, create 2 fields called "last name" and then "first name". Now you can sort and search by either. Once you have your list of fields you need to determine how long the maximum number of characters will be, let's say 20 characters long, and what type of field it should be (text, number, date, currency, etc). Last is whether the field should allow only numeric entries, alphabetical only or both alphanumeric entries. Once you have this list the program will basically lead you through the process of creating them. Now it's just getting familiar with how to search, create a custom report or add/remove data. Sorry to be so long winded but it can really help with your family searches when you have a lot of data to sort through. Bill Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 23:18:16 -0000 From: "GOLDING KIDD" <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [IRL-WICKLOW] IRL-WICKLOW Digest, DANIEL KAVANAGH To: <[email protected]> Message-ID: <[email protected]> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Hey Peggy Any news about Word, Excel & Microsoft Have you any words of wisdom to impart as promised ! Golding