[Year 12 SofDev] Data dictionary - data formats

[Mike Brookes]

Hi Andrew,
Yes if the merge field is given a custom format of 0000.
Attachment contains a spreadsheet with some postcodes in col 1.
the col2 duplicates col 1 and adds a custom format of 0000.
The word doc is a label mailmerge to explore how M$ transfers numbers 
between apps - it seems that it doesn't transfer formats so that the 
mailmerge field must be formatted with 0000 to give the leading zero

Storing postcode as text might be easier but its still not as efficient.

Memory etc might be cheaper now but the first computer I built (EA's 
Miniscamp) had 128 bytes of memory. This does not necessarily mean that 
I'm fanatical about efficiency :-)

Mike


On 6/04/2011 7:26 PM, Andrew Shortell wrote:
> Hi Mike
> Most "people" would merge it out from an excel file into say an address
> label
> Would microprice s/w print the leading zero when it comes from excel as a
> number?
> Would any other better written s/w print the leading zero?
>
> Would it not be simpler to just treat it as text ...
>
>
> You no doubt will remember when NT postcodes changed.. (It was when Oz post
> wanted to introduce personalised postcodes for big companies in sydney and
> melb - melb got the 8000s and sydeny got the 9000s) this occurred after ram
> /hdd space became significantly cheaper and thus within the price point of a
> public provider of services such as oz post
>
> So originally they were all numeric which would have fitted with the whole
> thought that they could be stored in less space... Now that restriction is
> functionally irrelevant.
>
> Andrew S

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Mailmerge field format.zip
Type: application/octet-stream
Size: 16269 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://www.edulists.com.au/pipermail/sofdev/attachments/20110406/3a2edb70/Mailmergefieldformat-0001.zip