Currently, we publish our databases in the form of Excel Sheets. Despite being a commercial (non-open source) program, we chose Excel for its simplicity, flexibility, functionality, and users’ familiarity with the program. In this section, we explain the best steps to follow to help our users browse and explore our online databases and archives.
- We recommend you open the needed file through a personal desktop computer or personal laptop to allow the Excel cells to be fully shown.
- Users can download the needed Excel file for a more accessible view from the desktop by clicking on the Download option available under each file or from the attachments. Users can also view files on our website by clicking view in the full-size workbook on the bottom right corner of the file.
- After downloading and opening the file from your desktop, you can control the view of rows and columns to show a specific type of data by using the Filter function. This function exists for each column (variable); for example, to show incidents indexed under a certain governorate, click on the small white square shown on top of the column’s title you want (in this case, it’s the governorate’s column), then uncheck the Select all option and Check the governorate you need only (Cairo for example). This way, you get all incidents indexed for Cairo. To go back to viewing all incidents, you click on the small white square again and check the Select all option.
- You can also arrange the rows differently as needed by using the Sort function for each column (each variable). For example, you can click on the small white square shown on top of the column’s title you want (in this case, it’s the governorate’s column). Then you can select Sort from A to Z or Sort from Z to A to arrange the governorate column alphabetically along all the corresponding rows. To go back to the original order, click on the small white square shown on top of the serial column (first column on the sheet) and select Sort from A to Z.
- To search for a word or words inside the file, click Ctrl+F, type the word you are searching for, and click on Next to search for any mentions of the word in the rest of the file.