The below summarizes the Excel features found in the new Excel module for Pathagoras.

   Pathagoras has now been adapted for Excel operations and is available for separate purchase.

   Certain features work in Excel identically to way they work in Word. Other features allow you to control Pathagoras/Word directly from your Excel, thus allowing you to assemble a complete document in Word entirely from Excel screenage.

   There are 4 distinct aspects to the Excel features:

1. "Spreadsheet Management:" This parallels the 'PathSmart' features in Word. This feature allows you to manage, quickly recall, edit,and store spreadsheets in a fashion perhaps a bit more organized than the system you currently use.

2. InstantDatabase. This feature is identical in form and purpose to IDB in Pathagoras/Word. You can scan a spreadsheet for two 'kinds' of variables:

       a. Pathagoras can scan for bracketed variables, just like those in Word.

       b. Pathagoras will scan for named cells and treat them as if they were bracketed variables. (Technically, a cell name  cannot contain brackets -- they are considered an 'illegal' character. So, Pathagoras deems any named cell as 'a variable' even without the brackets.) And if you want to restrict which named cells that Pathagoras will process, you can add a designated "suffix" to the name of the cell. Pathagoras will read only those cells which contain the suffix.

Then, just like with Pathagoras/Word, you can replace the variables throughout the spread sheet with replacement text. If a bracketed variable exists in the cell, it will be replaced with the designated replacement text. If the name of the cell matches the bracketed variable sans the brackets, the content of the cell will be replaced by the designated replacement text.

3. 'Data Collection' and 'Data Generation' Forms. If you need a more extensive, complex, powerful or attractive intake form than what you can typically generate in Word, Excel is the place for you to design it. Excel allows you to easily create elaborate intake/data entry forms.  This form can be completed 'in house' or can be emailed to a client or customer for completion and emailed back. Then, as indicated in 2. above, with the press of a single button, Pathagoras can read the named fields in the form and generate an Instant Database record. This record can immediately be used in any other Pathagoras endeavor (whether Word or Excel).

   Plus, since the data is stored as a ".csv" (comma separated value) file, it is usable universally by any other spreadsheet or database program.

4. Control Word from Excel.

       a. You can select a book from any Pathagoras/Word library, display and select the forms and documents in the selected book.

       b. You can even select the IDB record that you want to apply to the form or document selected in 'a.'

       c. You can press a single button in Excel which commands Word to open, locate the document selected in a. and merge it with the data record selected in b.

A separate manual describing, illustrating and providing instruction for this aspect of Pathagoras.
See http://www.pathagoras.com/help/excel/Pathagoras(excel).pdf

Page url: http://www.pathagoras.com/help/index.html?excel_link.htm