database/excel Help

[civic_epidemic]

Hey Guys,
So hopefully the people who will be able to help me are lurking around at this time. I got dumped with a gruesome task that I have to do tonight...around 6 pm or thereabouts, probably 5. Here's my problem:

I have to be able to check in roughly 400 some guests and since being the lazy ass I am and don't want to use paper, i want to use a computer instead. I need to be able to put in 400 people with roughly 4 different parameters (last name, first name, table no. , and whether they came or not). That's the easy part, then I need to be able to pull up these names with some kind of search function, preferrably a fuzzy search kind of function, but if it's just single parameter, that works just fine too. After I search their name up, I need to be able to pull all of those parameters back up and then be able to change some kind of value to show that they showed up so we can send some kind of thank you object.

Can this be done in excel, and if it can, how screwed am I and how long will it take.

If it can't be done in excel, is my only other option sql or mysql.

[Thaco]

punch all the names in excel, when they show up, hit ctrl+f search for their name, put in a 1 in a specific column when they check in, when you're done, sort by that column and it'll bring all the people who showed up to the top, then delete all the people who didn't show (the bottom) and use mailmerge in word to make your thank you cards.

[civic_epidemic]

Ha Ha Ha, thanks thaco, I just kinda wanted to write something a little bit more than just using the cntrl f function, but hey quick and dirty, whatever works....... let's just hope this works tommorow, because I really don't want to have to search 400 names on paper. Here's the second problem i have now, If I put all of them into separate columns, if I apply a filter on a specific coloumn, can I get the whole row to move accordingly so that information does not get split up

[suen17]

^^ Highlight the entire data set and use the list function, or if you know how to use pivot tables, you can arrange data in miraculous ways.

[civic_epidemic]

Gah pivot tables

[Street_Soldier]

access will be better imo, just write some queries on what u want to return, you wont need to write it out again just import your table into access.