Any Excel programmers?

[mdshunk]

I have a project I'd like to have done up in Excel format; well OpenOffice actually. The last spreadsheets I used on a regular basis were VisaCalc and later Lotus 1-2-3, so that tells you how old my skills are in that area. This project will require at least two "forms" with drop down menus, neither of which anything I ever learned did. I thought I'd put a general call out on this forum in case anyone was in that "business" and would give me a quote on doing the job. It will need have a inventory database in order to do simple line item material take off estimating and simple invoicing. The two "forms" would be an "estimate" and an "invoice". Thanks...Marc.

[Mr T]

I am not that far into Open Office's spreadsheet program, but I'm pretty sure it does not support Visual Basic. Would be kinda pointless in developing a alternative to a microsoft product and then stick a microsoft product into it.

I took a peek on their website (www.openoffice.org) and noticed that they have Version 2 in beta. It supports SQL integration with their spreadsheet. May be a better approach, depending on how big this project will be. (SQL will easily install onto a computer as a server-to-self.

Is this going to be integrated to mdshunk.com?

[Ron]

I can't say that excel programming is my business, but I have made a number of forms in my time for design purposes. If your willing to try, I'd be willing to give suggestions.
Excel permits you to create a drop down list for item selection, and a lookup function for finding information associated with that drop down selection.
Let me know if you want to give it a go.

[mdshunk]

I'm not especially interested in trying to do it myself. I half-figured with all the talent that passes through this site, there would be some one or two that do this for a living or as a hobby. I'm basically trying to hire it done.

[jsmall]

I'm not especially interested in trying to do it myself.

Wow, I never thought I would hear these words from you mdshunk!

Apologies for the late reply, I just noticed this thread. I am a programmer but have never done anything with databases before. However this would be a useful enough skill to have that I'd consider taking this on, or at least doing some more research to see what's out there. I assume you want to stay with OpenOffice (yeah!), as Mr T said that means you'll have to use a beta version for the time being. In my opinion, a beta of OpenOffice is about a zillion times better than any 'stable' M$Office product anyhow. ;) I'll download the beta when I get home tonight and check it out.

Just out of curiosity - what OS are you using? At home I've got Windows XP, Fedora Core 1 (Linux) and Mac OS10.3.9 (Panther). Hardly ever use the Windows though.

If you care, there is info on the OpenOffice Database Access Project at http://dba.openoffice.org

[C. Caudill]

Marc,
Could you post a sample estimate and invoice or pm one?