Data Collection Form

[Marc Enzi]

I have lots of clients who do not have excel, and I need to gather client data, most of the data is numerical or 3 letter codes.

What is is the simplest most straightforward method of solving this problem.

I was thinking to print the excel page to a PDF and make it into a fillable form, that the client completes and emails me back the pdf and then I somehow pull the data back into excel.
(I hope there is an easier way)

Is there any kind of an excel viewer utility that might also allow populating fields in an excel spreadsheet? I don't need it to calculate anything at the clients end.

Thanks.

Marc Enzi

 

[nbrcrunch]

Marc:

Microsoft does make a viewer, but it is just that, a viewer only.

Several months back a poster came inquiring about alternatives & I recommended several free-bees. I can't find that post right now, but if you check cnet's download.com for free spreadsheets, I think you'll find what you are looking for.

Another over-simplified solution:
If the codes they are entering aren't that many, you can have your clients enter them into text files. Fields (columns) are separated by commas and records (rows) are separated by carriage returns. Have the clients save the files as CSV files and you will be able to open them directly in Excel.

addendum:
http://www.mrexcel.com/board2/viewtopic.php?t=171458

 

[Marc Enzi]

Thanks for the information.

I'll look into some freebies, and puchase the one that works the best.

Does anyone here have any experience using a PDF fillable form that exports to excel?


What if I ty saving the excel form as an HTML file, could clients then fill it out, save it and email it to me? he problem is this will be a multi page workbook (one for each month, and additional expense sheets)

Any experience or advice is appreciated.

 

[nbrcrunch]

Marc:

Exporting to html will not work for your client because, as you've already noted, they have no means of importing the file into something else and editing it.

I can't answer the PDF question. But have you tried it? It seems that would be the simplest thing to do--Intead of being held up waiting for a reply, at least try it first.

For your safety, remove your email address from the postings. There are data miners that find these things and the next thing you know you are subject of a bohemoth of junk emailings.

 

[nbrcrunch]

Just saw this post about exceleverywhere.com

http://www.mrexcel.com/board2/viewtopic.php?t=185143