Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!munnari!murdu!sue
From: sue@murdu.OZ (Sue McPherson)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Free Text in a Database
Message-ID: <1509@murdu.OZ>
Date: 18 Jan 89 02:46:58 GMT
Reply-To: sue@murdu.UUCP (Sue McPherson)
Organization: Software Contracts Group, University of Melbourne, Australia
Lines: 38

I'm posting this query in the hope that some-one has solved the problem I'm
facing.

I have an IBM PC compatible (a 386 with 4Mb of memory and 40Mb HD) and I want 
to set up a database which will contain approx 4,500 records. The records will
contain some ordinary numeric and character fields and (here's the hard part)
one field which contains textual information (between 100 and 1000 characters)
and the text would ideally be in a word processing format (as it needs to store
supscripts and superscripts, although I could use imbedded RTF commands). 
Bearing in mind that the end users will be almost computer illiterate 
(admin/wp types) I need a package which will allow a variable length field 
to be displayed and edited on the screen (along with the other fields).
Note: I don't have to be able to search the text, only output it in reports.

The only package I have seen which appeals is Framework which allows you to
have a word proccessing "frame" as a field in a record, ie. you drop into the 
word processor when you edit the field. The only problem is that according
to the support people a database larger than 2000 records is not recommended.

I've considered a few PC databases but none of them seem to do what I want.
The previous consultant who worked on this had a DBase III+ database for the
simple info and a WP file for each of the text entries. Needless to say the
end-users never mastered the art of jumping between Word and DBase and the
consultant was unable to get the reporting programs to include the text. 

If anyone has a solution to this problem or could suggest a Database package
which would be suitable for this applications I would greatly appreciate
your advice.

Many Thanks,

Sue McPherson
sue@murdu.mu.oz

Software Contracts Group
University of Melbourne
Parkville  3052
Australia