Building an index/cross reference in MS Office

Factual Questions
1

I recently gained possession of approximately 1,500 35mm slides. They were taken by my grandfather, most in the 1960s, and I’m scanning them. I’d like to have a way to find images containing specific people or items.

For now I have an Excel spreadsheet that has an image number, month-year from the slide frame and a description. The description is currently comma separated with names (Bill, Sue) or a list of keywords: Fall, train, snow, waterfall, etc. I’m just starting so it wouldn’t be too hard to change the data.

Leaving it in Excel, I can just filter on a name or key word (“includes”). If I export that to word with one image per page (I’ll never print it), I can use the Word features to generate an index.

Best case, I’d like to be able to generate a list of images for a given name or keyword. I don’t want to buy special software but I have Office Pro with Access.

Suggestions?

2

A database would be my choice for something like that. But I would caution you against using anything Microsoft. They have come out with “upgrades” in the past in which NOTHING in a database I wrote worked after the update! They have screwed over a LOT of people with their upgrades which break things.

Might want to try an open source database. Maybe Open Office has a database? Also you can even store the actual pictures in a database or a link to a picture.