from Excel to Toolbox to Phonology Assistant

[Ani@Krtidaya]

Hi, it's me again. I have not yet figured out a simple, clean way to
get UNICODE data from my excel wordlists (in Taburta and Fuau
languages) into Toolbox, but my desired end of getting data into
Phonology Assistant worked -- i just exported the excel list to a .txt
file, simplified it by making it only one marker and word per line,
making sure there was nothing before the first record marker (i.e. the
first two lines of the dictionary.txt file), and then saved it with
the .db extension instead of .txt. Finally, I mapped the fields
accordingly in Phonology Assistant,

HOWEVER, I still need to get the data into Toolbox because it cannot
be edited in Phonology Assistant, and it would be tedious to continue
jumping from excel to notepad to phonology assistant with every little
change.

PLEASE help! What's the simple way to get a word list from Excel into
Toolbox?
Ani in Indonesia

[D. Rowe]

Ani:

PLEASE help!  What's the simple way to get a word list from Excel into
Toolbox?
  

The following was recently posted on another discussion list. Perhaps it will meet your need:

This can be done using the SheetSwiper program developed by John Hatton. It takes any Excel spreadsheet and turns it into a Standard Format File (SFM) by using the markers on the top row of the data. Then you can import the SFM file into FLEx through the usual import process.

 

\lx	\ps	\ge	\gn	\xv	\xe
lexeme	partOfspeech	glossInEnglish	glossInNational	exampleInVernacular	exampleInEnglish

 etc.

If this doesn't correspond to your need, please write again.

D.Rowe

[Mark Penny]

And here is where you can get it from:

SheetSwiper (http://projects.palaso.org/projects/show/sheetswiper)  is the coolest little app I’ve seen for a while. It really meets a need we have here and is so simple and easy.

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From: shoeboxtoolbox-fiel...@googlegroups.com [mailto:shoeboxtoolbox-fiel...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of D. Rowe
Sent: Friday, September 24, 2010 12:55 AM
To: shoeboxtoolbox-fiel...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [Toolbox] from Excel to Toolbox to Phonology Assistant

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[Nick Thieberger]

Another way of doing this is to insert a column in the spreadsheet with the field names (e.g. \lx followed by a space), in front of the field they refer to, and fill them down the whole column using the spreadsheet's 'fill down' function. You can then export this to a text file and delete all carriage returns, and replace all backslashes with carriage return and backslash. You still need to insert the relevant header into the Toolbox file, but you can copy and paste one from another lexicon.

Nick

[Ani@Krtidaya]

Thanks also, D. Rowe! I found the program and it was slick. Very
nice. --Ani

[Ani@Krtidaya]

The Sheetswiper program worked great -- thanks! My excel data is now
in Toolbox. I can't say how happy this makes me and how much time it
has saved... weeks, months...
Thanks a million.
Ani

[Ani@Krtidaya]

Thanks for the suggestion, Nick. In my case i had tried that and with
two word lists this works out to be quite a bit more work than the
nifty Sheetsweeper program mentioned above. -- Ani

[lena.we...@gmail.com]

Ani, I just read the posts because I had the same question. I also converted my Excel File via Sheet Swiper for Toolbox. 

But help - once I did this, how do I import the data into my existing toolbox project??

I cannot find an "Import" button anywhere. I tried it with File--> Open.

thanks,

Lena

[ToolBox Support]

File, Open is the right way to import data into Toolbox. Toolbox will ask for a Database Type.

You might already have one that matches your data. Did you have any guidelines for assigning the markers to the Excel columns?

If your first marker is \lx, you can choose "MDF 4.0" from the list of Database Types. This is the standard database type used for lexicons in Toolbox, though some do something different.

Otherwise, if you don't know what to choose, take note of the marker on the line Toolbox is showing in the Preview window (the first line in your text-- something like "\ab data").

- click on "Add a new Database Type".

  Toolbox will display the list of Database Types that are available to choose among. Not knowing your data, I can't suggest anything.

- click on Add

  Toolbox will display a small dialog box with a default name of "added" and a blank Record Marker.

- fill in an appropriate name for your data (Medical Dictionary, or whatever seems appropriate), and fill in the backslash code (the "\ab" in the example above, not the data).

- Click OK

  Toolbox will display the Database Type Properties dialog box for your new Database Type. There is a lot that could be filled in here, but actually, there is nothing more that must be done at this point.

- Click OK.

  Toolbox will return to the list of Database Types.

- Click Close.

  Toolbox will return to the Import dialog box. Your new Database Type will be selected.

- Click OK.

Toolbox should load your data without any further issues. However, there is the matter of getting the right information assigned to the various markers. That's another (longer) message.

I see you are having problems with the character set. The Language Encoding is one the the items that is assigned to a marker by the Database Type.

Toolbox Support

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[David Rowe]

At the risk of stating the obvious: Back up your Toolbox project (database and control files) before starting the import just in case it doesn't go as planned.

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