I'm willing to create a database (probably excel table), What is the best way to transcript 10 years archives to a table ?

Question

Archives are written by hand.
Manually, it would take me 15 to 30 minutes to read, understand, than transcript valuable informations from one physical file to one Excel row.
I'm open to all faisable ideas💡

Hi solo learners !

Answer 1

Hi Youcef,

If your wanting to store 10 years of valuable information then Excel probably isn’t your best bet.

For something that large you would be better using a proper dbs/dbms.

Benefits would become clear when you come to query, manage, replicate and use the data.

With regards to the data input, there’s not much you can do apart from:

1) If the handwriting is legible then you could possible use OCR software to quickly convert into digital form. OCR software is a lot more reliable nowadays than it used to be, however you would need to test this for accuracy first.

2) Employ people/use crowd working/freelance data entry. You would need to pay for this and also take images of your documents. You would also need to be confident that nothing was confidential/breaking data regulations by sharing.

3) Take a typing course, you can quickly get your speed up by practicing - you may be able to cut your 15-30mins down to 5....