GrahamC Posted 4 February , 2012 Share Posted 4 February , 2012 and just realised all links I have on web sites to individuals are now broke as the url's are different. URLs are different but the links still work - at least on my site they do, apart from the 'Histories' mentioned 4 posts age. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David_Underdown Posted 4 February , 2012 Share Posted 4 February , 2012 The old ones redirect to the new ones seamlessly. If you want to update the links anyway, note that it does not appear to be absolutely necessary to include the casualty's name at the end Don't think links to certificates work though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melliget Posted 5 February , 2012 Share Posted 5 February , 2012 Those using the Export Data option should note that there is a maximum of 75,000 records permitted in such downloads. If importing into MS Excel 2003 and earlier, the row limit per sheet is 65,536 anyway. MS Excel 2007 and later allows up to a million rows. regards, Martin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
River97 Posted 5 February , 2012 Author Share Posted 5 February , 2012 If importing into MS Excel 2003 and earlier, the row limit per sheet is 65,536 anyway. MS Excel 2007 and later allows up to a million rows. regards, Martin That's a good thing then, this makes the search criteria endless. Now, Martin, did you scroll all the way down to find that out? Cheers Andy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melliget Posted 5 February , 2012 Share Posted 5 February , 2012 No, quite familiar with that limitation, Andy I use Excel for work a lot and my laptop only has 2003. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hywyn Posted 5 February , 2012 Share Posted 5 February , 2012 Martin I have hit this 65 536 problem with my RWF data. I didn't know that later versions had a (much) higher capacity. Thanks for this.Just need to work out how to upgrade now. Hywyn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melliget Posted 5 February , 2012 Share Posted 5 February , 2012 Hywyn. If you want to have everything on one spreadsheet, then upgrading is probably the answer. But if you are downloading large csv files and don't mind having them in separate sheets, you can split them up with an industrial strength text editor. Something like Textpad - Notepad is no good for large files. I have a script somewhere that will split a text file into whatever number you specify. But I'm drifting off topic... regards, Martin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Tulloch-Marshall Posted 6 February , 2012 Share Posted 6 February , 2012 I've downloaded a complete regiment as a spreadsheet. How do I then extract a single battalion from those results ? (What I'd really like is an answer to that in English !). thanks - Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melliget Posted 6 February , 2012 Share Posted 6 February , 2012 Tom. I'm assuming you're using Microsoft Excel. The following is for Excel version 2003. Open up the spreadsheet. Click on the cell A1, it should contain "Surname" (top-left corner). From menu at top, select Data > Filter > Auto-Filter. Click on the filter (down arrow) at the top of Column J, which should be "unitshipsquadron". You should see a list of Battalions, Companies, etc. Selecting one will display the list of casualties just for that particular unit. regards, Martin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melliget Posted 6 February , 2012 Share Posted 6 February , 2012 There seems to be a fair bit of variation in the values entered into "unitshipsquadron", so you may need to change them to one value in your spreadsheet so that you can display casualties for one unit together. For example, my mum's uncle's unit in WW2 is recorded variously as: A I.F. 2/10 Field Coy. A. I. F. 2/10 Field Coy. A.I.F. 2/10 Fd. Coy. A.I.F. 2/10 Field Coy. A.I.F. 2110 Field Coy. regards, Martin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hywyn Posted 6 February , 2012 Share Posted 6 February , 2012 Thanks Martin. I have consulted my techie (daughter) and upgrading is now being sorted. Hywyn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Tulloch-Marshall Posted 6 February , 2012 Share Posted 6 February , 2012 There seems to be a fair bit of variation in the values entered into "unitshipsquadron", so you may need to change them to one value in your spreadsheet so that you can display casualties for one unit together. For example, my mum's uncle's unit in WW2 is recorded variously as: A I.F. 2/10 Field Coy. A. I. F. 2/10 Field Coy. A.I.F. 2/10 Fd. Coy. A.I.F. 2/10 Field Coy. A.I.F. 2110 Field Coy. regards, Martin Martin - thanks for that, - your thankfully short and clear instructions do work for me ... BUT - as you point out in your second mail above, the variations on naming the battalion attachment (I'm looking at an infantry regiment) then become a nightmare. I'm looking for men in, call it X Battalion. The CWGC seem to be listing X Battalion 1st/X Battalion 2nd/X Battalion 3rd/X Battalion A Coy X Battalion A Coy 1st/X Battalion and on and on and on ....................... Suddenly its all looking very tedious. I suppose I'll have to filter for all these variations, store the resulting spread sheets, then somehow stick them back together again ? Oh dear Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Tulloch-Marshall Posted 6 February , 2012 Share Posted 6 February , 2012 AND ... on the downloaded spreadsheet why are the dates of death just appearing as strings of hash symbols, no dates shown ? Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisC Posted 6 February , 2012 Share Posted 6 February , 2012 AND ... on the downloaded spreadsheet why are the dates of death just appearing as strings of hash symbols, no dates shown ? Tom Hi Tom If you put the cursor on the line seperating the column at the top row and click, the column width will correct itself and you'll see the figures. Chris C Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David_Underdown Posted 6 February , 2012 Share Posted 6 February , 2012 For the filter, you should be able to do a custom one as "contains X Battalion" which should pick up all the variations Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hazelclark Posted 6 February , 2012 Share Posted 6 February , 2012 Glad it is not just me. I know that I am somewhat technologically challenged but think I have average intelligence. however last week I almost came to the conclusion that relatived I had previously found wth ease produced "0 results" Maybe I'm the one that needs "tweaking" Hazel C. Today wanting to double check a date of death I went to the new site, and every search I made for my man came up with error, I evan tried looking under the cemetery but still I only get error message Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Tulloch-Marshall Posted 6 February , 2012 Share Posted 6 February , 2012 Hi Tom If you put the cursor on the line seperating the column at the top row and click, the column width will correct itself and you'll see the figures. Chris C Chris - thanks. Yes, I find that if you spend ten minutes furiously clicking anything and everything near the top of column F then eventually a date appears in one of the rows. If I then click in the box at the top of column F then all the dates appear. If I then close the document sixteen times, telling it to save changes EVERY TIME, then it ignores me sixteen times. On the seventeenth occasion it appears to pay attention and the next time I open the file the dates are still there. David - if I then highlight column J and then click Data > Filter > Advanced filter it gives me an error message (?) saying it cannot determine which row contains column labels, which are required for this command. This seems to be a dead end. So ... this is the new all-singing all-dancing CWGC database then Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keithmroberts Posted 7 February , 2012 Share Posted 7 February , 2012 Tom If you want to sort or filter the data you have to select ALL the cells in which the data is held. Go to the bottom right cell of the data, including all columns, then dpress left mouse button, and sweep back to cell A1. After that you should be able to use the sort and filter options. Keith Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bardess Posted 7 February , 2012 Share Posted 7 February , 2012 Quicker way to select all is click on bottom right-hand cell then zoom up to the top left-hand cell, press shift and left-click and all should be selected Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CGM Posted 7 February , 2012 Share Posted 7 February , 2012 I have the same hash / date problem, so whenever I open my downloaded sheet I just highlight the date column, click on format and cells and choose date. (I actually choose the date format with the year first so I can choose sort by date of death if I wish.) I can't save this change though and I put this down to using an old version of Excel which I think I am being told is something to do with it not being compatible with CSV (Comma delimited) ?? Does that sound correct? CGM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terry Denham Posted 7 February , 2012 Share Posted 7 February , 2012 None of the issues mentioned above are anything to do with CWGC, the new website or the database. They are matters relating to Excel and unfamiliarity with regular use of the program. Obviously, having a later version of Excel helps considerably as there is a much higher limit on the number of records it can hold. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David_Underdown Posted 7 February , 2012 Share Posted 7 February , 2012 Saving the file as csv will not preserve any formatting. A csv (comma separated value) file is simply a text file with commas between each date field. To preserve any formatting, do "Save as..." and change the file type to be an actual Excel spreadsheet. The quickest way to resize all the columns is to click on the button above the row label 1, and to the left of column label A. That will select the whole sheet. Then move the cursor to the gap between the labels for columns A and B (the cursor should change to a cross with arrowheads at each head of the horizontal bar). Then double click. To work out what's going wrong with filtering, it would be helpful to know which version of Excel you're using, there are subtle differences as to how it's implemented. It's certainly working fine for me in Excel 2003. I downloaded all casualties for the East Surrey Regiment and filtered those from 5th Battalion, whether that was shown as A Coy 5th Bn 1/5th Bn or whatever. As Terry says, you can't blame CWGC for what Helpdesk staff would be wont to refer to as a PICNIC error (Problem In Chair, Not In Computer....) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anthw Posted 7 February , 2012 Share Posted 7 February , 2012 If you want to select all the data in an Excel spreadsheet click on the small gap between the '1' of row 1 and the 'A' of column A. That should select all the cells in a worksheet. Anth Edited for spelling Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisC Posted 7 February , 2012 Share Posted 7 February , 2012 Chris - thanks. Yes, I find that if you spend ten minutes furiously clicking anything and everything near the top of column F then eventually a date appears in one of the rows. If I then click in the box at the top of column F then all the dates appear. If I then close the document sixteen times, telling it to save changes EVERY TIME, then it ignores me sixteen times. On the seventeenth occasion it appears to pay attention and the next time I open the file the dates are still there. David - if I then highlight column J and then click Data > Filter > Advanced filter it gives me an error message (?) saying it cannot determine which row contains column labels, which are required for this command. This seems to be a dead end. So ... this is the new all-singing all-dancing CWGC database then Tom No, just the delightful features of Microsoft Excel Changes to the formatting of columns & rows will not save unless you format the cells after highlighting the whole spreadsheet. Bill's fault I reckon. (Gates that is) Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_Baker Posted 7 February , 2012 Share Posted 7 February , 2012 I am willing to run Excel courses for genealogists and military historians at very reasonable rates. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now