Path: csiph.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail
From: Jolly Roger <jollyroger@pobox.com>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.apps
Subject: Re: Decent editor for CSV files
Date: 6 Sep 2015 04:03:33 GMT
Organization: People for the Ethical Treatment of Pirates
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On 2015-09-06, Lewis <g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:
> I have a user who does not have Office and has a database of addresses
> stored as a CSV file. She needs to edit this file on occasions, but she
> needs something that treats the CSV file as a spreadsheet or table.
>
> Numbers works, but to save the file she has to do a File > Export > CSV
> and then overwrite the file in place.
>
> This scares her every time, which leads her to call me.

Would she feel more at ease saving the document to her desktop first,
verifying it's ok, and then copying it to replace the original?

> She only edits the file once or twice a year, so she doesn't remember
> from session to session.
>
> So, is there a simple basic (and preferably free or super cheap)
> application out there that will treat lines in a CSV as a single unit
> and easily let her add and remove records?
>
> A text editor is right out, she'd have to count commas.
>
> (the file is a DB for the Brother app "P Touch" which she uses to print
> out mailing labels for Christmas cards. It does not read Numbers files)

It wouldn't be very hard to write a little application to edit the data.
The app would read the CSV, present the data to the user in tabular or
form format, and then save the CSV when done. You could write it as a
stand-alone Mac application with Objective-C or Swift, or as a web (PHP,
whatever) application in a browser.

-- 
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JR