So, we're going to by a bar code scanner from VSAthletics.com. I'm guessing it'll work fine to scan the barcodes into your meet manager. If we buy a timer will we be able to download the recorded times from the timer into the meet manager? or will we have to do it the old fashioned way (input by hand)? we have a 7 team league final comming up in a couple of weeks and I'm looking to streamline the input.
There is a Find and Replace option in Notepad that should work well to removed these. You'll want to replace 0: with nothing (blank).
You can have problems doing this in the following scenario - 0:10:23.23 (Would become 123.23), but it looks like your format only has one set of colons, so you should be good.
Also, you'll need to replace the apostrophe (') with a colon in order for the EMMxc to correctly interpret the time. It may accept it, but it won't be able to read it (you could check be printing a report using the printer icon on the EMMxc Menu). Just make sure you replace the apostrophe AFTER you've removed the 0:, to avoid the problem mentioned above.
Another thought: you might check in the timer software to see if it has options for it's output. You might be able to set it to give you minutes:seconds.seconds by default, saving you this Find and Replace trouble.
By timer I mean something like the Sprint 8 or Ultrak L-10 printing timer/stopwatches.
The Sprint 8 has an available cable for hooking up to a computer to download times. It's then up to whether the software can recognize the transmitted data.
Dan
The EMMxc excel file has no native support for external timer interfaces. However:
I wanted to also mention that we've had trouble getting the cheaper CCD barcode scanners to work out in sunlight. You may want to confirm with the vendor that the barcode scanner you purchase will work outside.
David Bowdoin: The EMMxc excel file has no native support for external timer interfaces. However: If the timer comes with software that allowed you to retrive the list of times in a format you could copy and paste over to excel, that should work well.
I have had problems copying times from anything into the meet manager. I have a set of clocks that export times into Excel but if I copy and paste them into the meet manager they are always highlighted red and then when I try and print, it really doesn't work.
any suggestions?
I'm pretty sure the problem stems from Excel trying to guess what the data type should be. If you first copy the column of times into Notepad, then re-copy them, and finally paste them into excel, this seems to solve the problem.
An alternate way (possibly easier), would be to do a Paste As in Excel, and choose Text. This may be found under Paste Special.
Let us know if this doesn't solve the problem.
When entering times into Excel, I've always found it works best to first highlight the range of cells and format them all as Text. Otherwise, Excel tries to interpret them as time/day. Doing a 'Paste As' is more time consuming than having them formatted ahead of time, especially if you have to make subsequent changes.
Dan Kaplan: ...it works best to first highlight the range of cells and format them all as Text...
...it works best to first highlight the range of cells and format them all as Text...
This is true, and the EMMxc does have the Time field pre-formatted as Text. However, when copying from another Excel file, Excel wants to overwrite with the original cell format. The formatting macros also fire when copying longer lists of times, preventing you from selecting "Use Destination Formatting."
So, if copying from a separate program (not Excel), you may be able to simply copy and paste. However, if copying from Excel, or if having problems, first copy and paste into Notepad, then RE-COPY and paste into the EMMxc.
Gotcha. I agree, copying into a text editor first to remove formatting is often helpful.
WooHoo!!
The scanner and stopwatch & printer came just in time to play around with at yesterday's meet. The barcode scanner is "plug-and-play" and worked like a charm even on the paper tags I created. Yes the sunlight was a concern but I managed to overcome that quickly.
My problem now is with the stopwatch. It's an Ultrak 499 and I have the software and USB device to download times to our laptop. The software allows me to select COM Ports 1,2,3 or 4 for download, but my laptop USB slots are identified as Ports 7,8, and 9. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can solve this by next Thursday? I haven't contacted the software company yet 'cause I'm confident one of the PC gurus here can help me solve it first!
Thanks,
Paul
Boy, I surprise myself sometimes...By chance I plugged the stopwatch into my laptop BEFORE starting it up and was able to get everything working. The watch downloaded the times into the software, I copied all of the data into NOTEBOOK(as text), cleaned it up, and did a copy & paste into an EMMxc test meet. All went good EXCEPT nearly half of the times(33 out of 76) are highlighted in red. There are no duplicates and all are in order. Any suggestions?
Update: I've managed to retrieve the data and paste it into my race without red highlights. The times come in as: Hours:minutes'seconds.tenthshundredths (0:16'45.34). Does anyone know of a way to globally delete the zero hour's before I copy and paste from excel workbook into the race?
If you do run into problems with multiple sets of colons and the Find & Replace matching more than the desired items, I would recommend a higher powered text editor (I use EditPlus) that offers pattern matching.
I unfortunately have never been able to copy and paste into the file without getting red or yellow times.
I have tried to copy excel to excel -
excel - notepad - excel
Tried converting to text before I copied - nothing seems to help.
I have these super cool wireless clocks that can download times from the finish line to my machine but the times are totally imcompatable :(
I also have a nelson - kellerman stop watch that I can get times from but only half actually show without the red and the other half all work great - I am at a loss