" sorry if this is off post ...will be my last"



Thx in advance for your help and interest.

i am an independant oil and gas consultant and have a fair

amount of computer experience but, am absolutely lost when it

comes to data bases .... i found a database online (in .php format)

that contains names, addresses, phone numbers, fax numbers

and email addresses of companies and people within the oil and

gas industry ... i want to be able to utilize this db in excel so i can

sort certain companies or people and use excels "mail merge"

system to send them emails.


i dont want you to do this for free ... while i certainly

appreciate your willingness to do it for free, i WANT to show my

appreciation by paying something for this service .... and i will.


i have queried the db online for all entries located within the

united states and received over 70,000 entries .... i then copied

and pasted them to microsoft word ... it is now 174 pages

(840KB) .. i have it saved to a file ... i can send a copy of this

WORD attachment.... Here is what the 1st three entries look like

in Word;

"Company: PetroInvest LLC

Map It from MapQuest! Map It from Google! What's the Weather

Like? Phone to Google! Fax to Google!
Industry:
Web based exchange linking private placement drilling programs

with securities broker-dealers and qualified institutional

investors.

Department:
Division / Booth:
Position: President
Lastname, Firstname: King, Steven
Phone: 713-667-5692
Fax:
Email: sking (AT) petroinvest (DOT) com
Address Line 1: 2222 Maroneal Street
Address Line 2: Suite 1517
City, State/Province Zipcode: Houston, TX 77030
Country: USA
Website: www.petroinvest.com

Company: B & B Resourses

Map It from MapQuest! Map It from Google! What's the Weather

Like? Phone to Google! Fax to Google!
Industry:
Investor opertor oil gas

Department:
Division / Booth:
Position: Owner
Lastname, Firstname: Barrow, Chuck
Phone: 918-495-1128
Fax: 918-495-0537
Email:
Address Line 1: 3637 east 67th Street
Address Line 2:
City, State/Province Zipcode: Tulsa, Ok 74136
Country:
Website:

Company: Thomas Family Trusts

Map It from MapQuest! Map It from Google! What's the Weather

Like? Phone to Google! Fax to Google!
Industry:
Private investor in royalties and working interests.

Department:
Division / Booth:
Position: Trustee
Lastname, Firstname: Thomas, Greg
Phone: 904-287-7689
Fax:
Email: tallguy525 (AT) comcast (DOT) net
Address Line 1: PO Box 600755
Address Line 2:
City, State/Province Zipcode: Jacksonville, FL 32260
Country: USA
Website: "


What i'd like to be able to do;

1.) I would like all info put into an excel sheet. I

would like each of the following categories in its own column so

the db can be sorted by one or more of them;

Company:
Industry:
Department:
Division / Booth:
Position:
Lastname, Firstname:
Phone:
Fax:
Email:
Address Line 1:
Address Line 2:
City, State/Province Zipcode:
Country:
Website:


2.) I would like both the email addresses and the

website addresses to remain as active links as they are in the

WORD format.

3.) Please note "Lastname and Firstname" are in the

same category (column) .. I would like to separate them into 2

different categories (columns).

4.) Please note "City, State/Providence Zipcode" are in

the same category (column) .. I would like to separate them into

3 different categories (columns). It would be great to be able to

sort the db with "City", "State", and "Zipcode".

5.) Also, i am enclosing the link to the website that

contains the full db ...( http://eeea.org/subscribe.htm ) in order

to view it or download it, you will need to sign up for a free 5

day trail ..... i would really like to have the entire db which would

include all countries other than the United States.

6.) You will note every entry contains a live link with

the following; "Map It from MapQuest! Map It from Google!

What's the Weather Like? Phone to Google! Fax to Google!" These

would all need to be globally taken out of the db.

In closing, I want to be able to open up the db in excel,

sort by one or more categories and use excels "mail merge"

feature to send the same email to all those queried.
is this too much to ask??

Let me know,

Thx,

jerry

On Feb 16, 8:12 am, Jerry in Oklahoma <sterling... (AT) cableone (DOT) net>
wrote:
Consider posting a project to a site like elance.com, freelancer.com
or rentacoder.com.

greg.fenton

On Feb 16, 1:12 pm, Jerry in Oklahoma <sterling... (AT) cableone (DOT) net>
wrote:
This sounds like a (fairly) straightforward find and replace problem.
You just need to be methodical.
One way of getting the data into excel is to use a delimited file.
Unfortunately, I think the options on delimiting are fairly limited in
excel - I think it always treats a carriage return as a new row. This
could be a problem with using Word because (I think) Word puts
arbitrary carriage returns into the data. So, instead I'd copy and
paste the text into something like textpad. And then do (something
like) the following steps (you may need to find some way of breaking
the dataset up into smaller chunks):

OK, before you begin, make a back up!

First find all instances of the text "Map it from... Fax to Google!"
and replace with nothing.

Now you need to find a character that can act as a delimiter. This has
to be a character that doesn't appear anywhere in your dataset. A good
one to try is the GBP symbol - I can't remember what you call it. This
side of the pond we call it the pound key but you use that term for
what we call the hash key.

Next you need to find every instance of a carriage return followed by
the words Industry:,Department:,Division / Booth:,Position:,Lastname,
Firstname:, etc.
Note that we're not looking for Company: just yet. Also note that
we're including the colon ':' in our search. In textpad, you can
specify 'Regular Expression' searches - so a search for for
'Industry:' might look like '\nIndustry:' (\n = new line)

Replace every instance of these terms with your chosen delimiter.

At this point, you may need to remove a couple more carriage returns.
Find every instance of \n followed by your chosen delimiter and simply
replace with just your chosen delimiter. Repeat this step as often as
necessary. It's important you get rid of all these before going on to
the next step, so repeat until you get an error message.

Now go back and look for Company:. This time, don't include the
carriage return in the search. We need the carriage return here so
that excel understands that it's a new entry. Replace Company: with
nothing.

Don't worry about extra lines between the rows. You can get rid of
those in excel.

That 'should' be it. Results may vary depending on how well the data
is formatted.

Save it as a .txt file and open in excel. A dialogue will appear. i
think the only thing you have to do is select 'delimited' and type
your chosen delimiter into the 'Other:' box.

Or just send me the raw data (ideally a txt file), find something nice
on my wishlist (http://tinyurl.com/yvqwrj) and I'll do it for you :-)