Exporting records

Summary: Records can be exported to plain text files using the Export option from the File drop down menu. You can use DScribe’s Natural format, XML format, standard formats such as tab or comma separated files, or define your own export format file to customise the layout, order, capitalisation etc. of fields (export format files are created using the Calm export format editor).

To export records, click Export on the File drop down menu. Select the appropriate button for the range of records you want to export (Current record, Hit list, All records or Hit list range). To select a custom export format, click File. Click To file to specify the file name for the exported records, then click OK to start exporting.

Calm can export records as plain text files, which (if correctly formatted) can be printed or read by other database managers, word processors etc. You can use DScribe’s own format called Natural format, standard formats such as tab or comma separated files, or you can define your own custom format by creating an export format file (with the file extension .EXP). It is good practice to export all your records in Natural format from time to time as a back up of the database.

To export records from the current database:

Sort the records to be exported, if necessary.

On the File drop down menu, click Export.

You will see a dialogue box, here is an example. Please note that the example dialogue box will open a new window, when you have finished and wish to return to this page, use the cross in the top right corner to close the window.

Select the required range of records:

To export the current record only, click Current record.

To export all records in the current hit list, click Hit list (the ith of n message at the top of the record shows how many records are currently in the hit list).

To export all records in the database, click All records.

To export a subset of the hit list, click Hit list range and type a start and finish number in the From and To boxes respectively.

Hint: Browse through the records before exporting and note the first and last records you want to export. The Hit list range option exports consecutive records only – sorting the hit list appropriately before exporting may make it easier to select a suitable range.
Select the required export method.
If you selected the Formatted export method, click the File button and double-click on the required export format file, or type a new format filename.

If you have typed a new export format file, click the Edit button to set up the format.
Click To file to export to a file, or skip this step and the next one to export to the Clipboard.
Type the name of the file to which you want to export the record(s) and click OK. If you want to append the specified records to an existing file, select the name from the list.

Note: If you are appending records to an existing file, make sure that you have selected the same export format as that used to create the existing file. Other database managers and word processor mail merge functions will require a consistent format.
Click OK to start exporting.

Options

Copies - This number specifies the number of copies of each record that are exported to the file.

Collate copies - When you are exporting more than one copy of each record, this option controls whether the copies are exported together or separately. If you do not select this option, multiple copies of records are exported together, otherwise they are exported separately. For example, if you are exporting 3 records A, B and C, and set copies to 2, selecting this option would export the records in the order A, B, C, A, B, C. Not selecting this option would export the records in the order A, A, B, B, C, C.

Suppress blank lines - Selecting this option causes blank lines to be removed from exported files. It is only available with the Formatted export method.

Append to output file - Select this option to append the new output to an existing file. To overwrite the records in an existing file, leave this option blank (not selected).

Joined records - Exports the record(s) you have selected with any joined records, for example, loans that are joined to a user record will be exported. Select Hit list to export all joins (for example, more than one loan for a particular user), or select Current record to export the 1^st join only.

Character conversion - Select the character set conversion required from the list.

(None) selects no character conversion. The default of UTF8 will be used.

Unicode (Utf8)

Ascii - for previous versions of Calm and other Windows programs. However, not all Unicode characters can be represented in ASCII so information may be lost depending on the characters used.

Macintosh - this option is used for a legacy file format and most customers won't need to use it, please use the Ascii option instead.

DOS - this option is used for a legacy file format and most customers won't need to use it, please use the Ascii option instead.