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Export Acrobat form data to EZWinScore?


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Is there a way to export data from an Acrobat PDF match entry form into EZWinScore for registration? I have zero experience exporting Acrobat form data, but I assume it'll let you do the standard tab-delimited text or whatever. But, can you import it into EZWinScore?

That would be so freaking cool.

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Uh... no, there isn't any built-in functionality to import registration data from ANYTHING into ezws. The best you can do is (if you have a version of ms office with Access) to create your competitor data externally with access and build the competitors table within the specific match .db file from that, but THAT is an error-prone exercise at best and can cause you real problems in actually scoring the match.

Bn

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Erik,

You'd have to do a text export out of Acrobat (no comma delimited that I can find) then write a program to parse it into a DB file. Not trivial, but not the end of the world. If this is an issue that you run into over and over, it might be worth pursuing a solution, but if it's a one shot deal, it's easier to do the data-entry.

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Agreed with Bill and Eric. I just toured the import old database function in EZ-Winscore and found this to be a dead end. I also opened a EZ-Winscore .db file in a text editor and found the data fields to be incompatable with either of the Acrobat data export formatting options and field order.

As Eric mentioned you would need to parse the output of each file you receive and then collate it all in a text editor before loading it up in EZ-Win. Big Pain In The A$$ compared to just typing each entry into EZ-Winscore as you receive them. Even cut and paste text copying will be slower than just typing it in cold from a printout. If you start with the existing RRGC EZ-Winscore shooter database over half of your competitors for this match will already be in it and you will save a lot of typing. Heck, the GBC EZ-Winscore database from last years match will probably be 75% the same as this years entry list will be.

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Regards,

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Oh well, it was a pipe dream from the start. At least a competitor can type into the form and print it and maybe we'll avoid problems due to poor penmanship.

Erik,

Don't get me wrong, it's not a BAD idea, it's just that data-entry is actually pretty efficient until you hit about the 500 to 1000 mark. Long ago, I used have a girl that worked in the front office do database conversions for me via data entry. It was 20X faster than trying to code a solution.

I've done it. It ain't rocket science, but the devil is in the details, and sometimes that takes a couple weeks to hammer it out and do the testing (which almost universally seems to take longer than creating the solution).

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Yeah, now, all that being said, Bruce Gary (Area 1 Director) DOES have a set of MS Access applications that register competitors for a ezws match externally of the system itself and then imports into ezws. Designed really for his personal use in setting up and driving registration for a Nationals-type match, it is NOT for the faint of heart and requires some amount of SQL query ability in order to make it work (not to mention having MS Access on your system, which not all of us do). It by no means should be considered a finished product and he will tell you such if you ask for it. But if you know Access well, he might could be talked into handing out a copy with the provisor that you don't forward it to others.

One neat thing it DOES do it print stage-generic competitor labels (name, division, competitor number, class, and not much more) such that you can be handed a sheet of these at registration to take around to the stages then and just peel off any label on the sheet to stick on your scoresheet without having to match stage names/numbers when you actually get to the stage and/or chronograph. There's also typically extras for reshoots so the RO's don't have to call back to shooter svcs to get a new label or scoresheet. This one feature is, I think, the greatest strength of Bruce's stuff and I've asked USPSA to consider implementing a similar generic label into the real ezws. We'll see....

Bn

"Looks for range"? That's cute!

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At least a competitor can type into the form and print it and maybe we'll avoid problems due to poor penmanship

Erik, ask Buff to tell you the tale of a garbled entry from the 1989 GG Championship and the treasurer before me. It's a classic in this regard. I handled the GG registration for a number of years after that and saw a few real doozies too.

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Regards,

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