The Export dialog lets you control settings for exporting grids or reports to various other formats (other file types).
Basics
Accessing it
This dialog may be accessed from the Export menu, which is found on data window toolbars and report window toolbars. After choosing an item from the Export menu (such as to export to Microsoft Excel), before this dialog appears you'll be asked to select a file name for the export. (You may change the file name using the dialog's Change button.)
Using it
| • | This dialog has different forms depending on the type of file you are exporting, so it won't always have the same features shown above. |
| • | Hover the mouse cursor over any of the dialog's Help bubbles for detailed information about the various settings. |
Different export formats are available depending on whether you're exporting from a data window or a report window. Here's a description of all of the available export types (and the file name extension associated with each of them).
| • | Microsoft Excel (.xls) is a popular spreadsheet program, and most other spreadsheet programs can load Excel (.xls) files. Reports export to Excel complete with all of their formulas, because reports are built in ManagePLUS' internal spreadsheet. Note however, that grids currently export without any formulas: a column total in the exported file is just a number; it won't update if you change other numbers in the column (i.e., when the file is loaded into a spreadsheet program for editing). Still, exporting from a grid to Excel is quite useful for getting QuickBooks transaction data into Excel, where you may do other calculations and analysis on it. |
| • | HTML (.htm) is the most common file format for information from Web sites, and HTML files can be loaded into any Web browser (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, etc.) for viewing. |
| • | XML (.xml) files are popular exchanging data between programs, because XML files are precisely structured in a way that allows easy access to individual pieces of data, such as a transaction date or amount. |
| • | Text (.txt) files can have many different formats. However, text files exported from ManagePLUS are in what is known as tab-delimited format, meaning that they contain columns of data with each column separated from the next one by a tab character (the same thing you get when you press the Tab key on your keyboard). Many programs can import tab-delimited files; in a spreadsheet program, the result is a spreadsheet with each type of data (transaction date, amount, memo, etc.) in a separate column. |