Need "Lab book" software

scottscott
Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
Okay so the group where I work is in need of some "lab book" software. We need some software to record measurements and analysis and graphs, jot notes ect. Ideally it would well with Office (yea yea I know). You know record some data, paste it into Excell, do some analysis and graphs, paste results back into e-lab book.





Worst part is it needs to be windows based. Sorry.





Anyone know of such a thing?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 9
    frawgzfrawgz Posts: 547member
    Why not just use Excel?
  • Reply 2 of 9
    scottscott Posts: 7,431member
    Well for one you can't jot notes in it. It's not easy to send stuff to other people. There's no time stamp on entries. Your ability to layout mixed information is zero to none. You can't easily put images into it. You can't search it. There's no table of contents automatically generated.
  • Reply 3 of 9
    frawgzfrawgz Posts: 547member
    Fair enough



    I've never used these, but the first time I saw this I was pretty impressed - AquaMinds NoteTaker. There's also Circus Ponies NoteBook, which is a similar product.
  • Reply 4 of 9
    scottscott Posts: 7,431member
    Yea I saw those. They are for Mac OS. I need it for Winblow 2000. It's for work where they use "professional" software.
  • Reply 5 of 9
    frawgzfrawgz Posts: 547member
    Oops, I forgot about that bit. Sorry about that
  • Reply 6 of 9
    shankstashanksta Posts: 96member
    if you have the time, i would go with filemaker or some db application:



    Pros:

    Mac and Win Compatible

    Store Excel Files

    Time Stamp that has real integrity

    Generate graphs quickly



    Cons:

    You gotta learn how to do it, hence time





    If its really ALL windows I would go with Access to be perfectly honest
  • Reply 7 of 9
    scottscott Posts: 7,431member
    That's not a bad idea. The department has some FM stuff now. The dipshits in MCIS are trying to get rid of it. I'll put that in as an idea. It may not be as free form as we want but the power of a database would be nice.





    I found some stuff at source forge too.
  • Reply 8 of 9
    mmmpiemmmpie Posts: 628member
    What can I say, you've got office, use word and embedded excel tables and charts.



    You need to write some template files that give you things like a timestamp column for excel. Its not hard at all. Im pretty sure that anything you want to do, word and excel will be able to do it.



    This is exactly the sort of thing that all those unused office features that everyone hates are for.



    If you're not sure how to do this sort of thing, I would suggest going and doing a course, or at least buying a book.



    Excel is a really nice data driven programming environment, and word gives you the generic note taking you want, and a formatting framework for printing reports.
  • Reply 9 of 9
    scottscott Posts: 7,431member
    That may be what we end up with. But you can't have this ever expanding word doc. Then you start splitting them and then you can't ....





    The database via FM sounds better right now.
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