Re: Easy power-user ad-hoc tool

"Jared" <jared_at_hwai.com> wrote in message news:480f610.0212191132.103bfc52_at_posting.google.com...
> > It is not clear what you are looking for. What are you using Access for
> > currently?
> >
> > Why do you need the ability to output Excel files? Excel 2000 can read
> > CSV files, can't it? So is the ability to output Comma-Separated-Values
> > not enough for you?
>
> *I* am not looking for anything - SQL*Plus is good enough for me. My
> users are a mixed bag; I think a CSV file would be OK for them. If a
> tool is reasonable priced and gives them .xls format, why wouldn't I
> give it to them?

Because on a standard Windows PC with Office installed double clicking a file with a .csv extension loads it automatically into Excel at zero cost. Similarly Tools|Data|Get External data (this command has been renamed a couple of times) will allow power users to query both Oracle and SQLServer directly from within Excel. In most cases these sorts of tools are bought because folk don't want to go to the effort of educating end-users. unfortunately once the tools is bought you still have uneducated endusers.

--
Niall Litchfield
Oracle DBA
Audit Commission UK
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