Microsoft Sharepoint Products and Technologies Resource Kit eBook

558 Part VII: Information Management in SharePoint Products and Technologies
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default when you install Office 2003. Datasheet programs allow you to quickly
add, delete, and update list entries just as you would in a spreadsheet program,
such as Microsoft Excel, without having to switch to a separate program.
■ Data imported from a spreadsheet. If you want to start with a list of information
in a spreadsheet, you can define a range of cells to use as a list in your
site. Windows SharePoint Services imports the data from the spreadsheet and
displays it the same way it displays the built-in lists—that is either in Standard
or Datasheet view. As you have imported the data into a list from a spreadsheet,
you might find the Datasheet view more useful. The Datasheet view is a
very powerful feature; you can apply themes to a Datasheet view and make
the Datasheet view the default view. For more information on the Datasheet
view, navigate to any list on a site, click Edit In Datasheet, and then at the bottom
of the list, click the Help link as illustrated in Figure 20-2.
Figure 20-2 Assistance with Datasheet view
There are other ways of displaying help for the Datasheet view—for
example, right-click any cell inside the Datasheet view, and click Help from the
drop-down menu list, or if the Datasheet view is in focus, press F1. If the
Datasheet view is not in focus, pressing F1 will display Internet Explorer Help.
When you create a list by importing data from a spreadsheet, there is no
inherent relationship between the original spreadsheet and the list on the site.
If you change the spreadsheet, the list on the site is not updated. Likewise,
changes to the list on the website are not reflected in the original spreadsheet.
If you want to synchronize the list to Microsoft Access or Microsoft Excel, you
need to create a link between the Datasheet view and Access or the Excel
worksheet. Once a link is created, data changes in one can be synchronized in
the other. See the Datasheet view help for more information.