carbonel

I keep running into this sort of thing, and I can't be the only one, can I? I'll have something that has a smallish number of entries, so it'd work just fine in a spreadsheet, except that it has multiple parameters, so it doesn't fit into a two-dimensional array. But a relational database seems like overkill because of the smallish number of entries.

In this case, it's a bunch of orders for T-shirts on PayPal. (And, coincidentally, is there any way to export the information from PayPal in some sort of clump? I haven't seen any way to do it except copy-and-paste one at a time.) There are around 60 orders. If each order only contained one T-shirt, it'd be simple. But each order contains up to four shirts, in varying sizes and types.

For the vendor, I need to generate a list sorted by size and type; for me, I need to generate a list that clumps all the items for each purchaser together. Plus mailing labels, but if I can do the other, this follows. This really ought to be simple, but the only way I know of to do it in Excel is to create multiple entries for each multiple shirt order, by copying the information down to the next row.

Instead, I'm struggling with Access, which I haven't used in several years, and am having major FAIL. (Long description of of one-to-many and many-to-many tables deleted. You're welcome)

Pat WINOLJ has offered me her copy of Access for Dummies, but by the time I drive over and get it, I could probably kluge up the entries in Excel. Which is possibly my essential problem -- I keep running into this sort of issue, but not often enough to be conversant in Access the way I am in Excel.

So -- am I missing a simple way to do this in Excel? Or am I better off struggling to learn how to do this in Access? Or should I combine things by entering the data in Excel and then importing it into Access and playing with it there?

Suggestions welcome.