Excel

[timothyedoran]

You're not wrong!

The files are outputs from a legacy non-relational database, which have to be pre-processed via a macro to sanitise it to go into a relational database...

Because it's not something that needs doing frequently, and the legacy system is due for imminent replacement, processing the data through excel is more cost/time effective than writing a script (legacy database) and associated query (relational database) to do it automagically!

Doesn't half get the computer kicking out some heat thought!

Getting a bit off topic but FME is my favourite software for this. It's historically a GIS data tool but works as well for any data. Basically it reads any format, transforms and write to any other format. No association with the company, just a very happy user.
See safe.com

 

[Peterm1000]

Thank you everyone for all of the wonderful replies it has certainly given me a few more things to think of.

I think the general consensus is that Excel will easily cope with what I want it to do and that has given me another idea to go along side the main one.
Apart from the main sheet that will contain everything in the 5300 rows I am now thinking of perhaps having 26 sheets for the different authors, my thinking is that it would be easier to find books by Authors (OK I don't know how to search in Excel yet )

As everyone has said, 5000 rows is not even scratching the surface in Excel.

Here's what you do. Work out the columns you want and add those in a row at the top. I highly recommend the first column is just a sequential number (1,2,3,4,5,6 etc.). That way you can sort the data and always get back to your original order.
Then start typing the data.

Once you are done, highlight everything and look for the Filter button which looks like a funnel and is on the Data toolbar (I think). It will add little arrows to the side of each column and you can use those to filter down results by author. Or use CTRL+F to search for things.

Have you tried Calibre? calibre - E-book management It's free software to organise and index your ebook collection.

Good luck!