Comic Book Collecting Software.

GABE! · Post by **GABE!** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 10:38 am

What do you guys use to keep track of which issues you have? Excel spreadsheets or another program.

I know that many of the listeners on this forum have extensive collections. So I was wondering how this was being handled.

Trev · Post by **Trev** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 11:05 am

http://www.comicbookpage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1190

Trev · Post by **Trev** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 11:07 am

http://www.comicbookpage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=262

Post by **JohnMayo** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 7:38 pm

GABE! wrote:What do you guys use to keep track of which issues you have? Excel spreadsheets or another program.

I know that many of the listeners on this forum have extensive collections. So I was wondering how this was being handled.

I've been giving this a lot of thought lately. I've been using Excel to track my collection but have been seriously considering switching to an off the shelf solution.

abysslord · Post by **abysslord** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 7:52 pm

Spreadsheet is my #1.

http://comicbookrealm.com/ is my #2.

Both the above are free .... well, you need Excel for #1

If I felt like paying hundreds of dollars and renewing every year, I'd use ComicBase. Not knocking it, just saying with a free solution available that I think works just as well there's no reason for me to switch over.

Trev · Post by **Trev** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 8:02 pm

JohnMayo wrote:
GABE! wrote:What do you guys use to keep track of which issues you have? Excel spreadsheets or another program.

I know that many of the listeners on this forum have extensive collections. So I was wondering how this was being handled.
I've been giving this a lot of thought lately. I've been using Excel to track my collection but have been seriously considering switching to an off the shelf solution.

Big news! what are you thinking about using?

you could probably write something to parse your spreadsheets into the new software.

comicm · Post by **comicm** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 8:09 pm

Comicbase is the best, probably the most expensive but the best

BobBretall · Post by **BobBretall** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 8:16 pm

Personally, I'd not want to be keeping my collection tracked on a web-site. If the guy running it drops dead, is hit by a bus, or walks away from the hobby, you're screwed. Then again, if you only have a few 1000 comics, it would be a pain but not that unmanageable to re-enter them all.

I have 75,000 comics, I really need a robust application.

There are cheaper solutions than ComicBase where you get physical software that runs on your computer.

Post by **JohnMayo** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 8:27 pm

comicm wrote:Comicbase is the best, probably the most expensive but the best

ComicBase is long since out of the running. Not only will it not allow me to track my collection at the ordering stage, I seriously doubt it ever will have that functionality. I've talked to the lead developer a number of times over the years and he is very set against adding that functionality.

One of my requirements is the ability to manage my collection at from the ordering stage.

Post by **JohnMayo** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 8:30 pm

BobBretall wrote:Personally, I'd not want to be keeping my collection tracked on a web-site. If the guy running it drops dead, is hit by a bus, or walks away from the hobby, you're screwed. Then again, if you only have a few 1000 comics, it would be a pain but not that unmanageable to re-enter them all.

I have 75,000 comics, I really need a robust application.

There are cheaper solutions than ComicBase where you get physical software that runs on your computer.

I completely agree that a web solution is out of the question. I need something local to my computer. My collection is not as big as Bob's collection and is only around 47,000 comics. dealing with that over a website would drive me nuts.

So, requirement #2 is having a local database, preferably one I can export my data out of for more sophisticated reporting.

Trev · Post by **Trev** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 8:48 pm

JohnMayo wrote:
BobBretall wrote:Personally, I'd not want to be keeping my collection tracked on a web-site. If the guy running it drops dead, is hit by a bus, or walks away from the hobby, you're screwed. Then again, if you only have a few 1000 comics, it would be a pain but not that unmanageable to re-enter them all.

I have 75,000 comics, I really need a robust application.

There are cheaper solutions than ComicBase where you get physical software that runs on your computer.
I completely agree that a web solution is out of the question. I need something local to my computer. My collection is not as big as Bob's collection and is only around 47,000 comics. dealing with that over a website would drive me nuts.

So, requirement #2 is having a local database, preferably one I can export my data out of for more sophisticated reporting.

so, we know what you won't use . . .

but what are you thinking? bec. right now i'm thinking you have to roll your own

Post by **JohnMayo** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 9:12 pm

Trev wrote: so, we know what you won't use . . .

but what are you thinking? bec. right now i'm thinking you have to roll your own

The whole point of the exercise it to get out of having rolled my own and needing to maintain it. My Excel solution is showing signs of age and having been grown organically versus coded with intent.

I've purchased Comic Collector 5.0 Pro with evening and I'm giving it a shot. It has some nice features. It also has some down sides. It took about 20 minutes to add my collection Action Comics into the system. About 6 minutes of that was picking the issues and most of the rest was the time it took to download the data and cover images.

If Comic Collection 5.0 Pro doesn't do what I need, and the jury is still out on that, then I'll look for something else.

abysslord · Post by **abysslord** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 10:23 pm

BobBretall wrote:Personally, I'd not want to be keeping my collection tracked on a web-site. If the guy running it drops dead, is hit by a bus, or walks away from the hobby, you're screwed. Then again, if you only have a few 1000 comics, it would be a pain but not that unmanageable to re-enter them all.

The same could be said about anything you use on your computer. If your hard drive was destroyed, for whatever reason, you're out that way too unless you back it up somewhere. The risk of one vs. the other is probably lopsided, but I asked the admin at ComicBookRealm and he has plans in case anything happened to him or the site, so it's pretty safe and you can always export your data for a back-up in excel format or whatever. But for you or John I can see it not really working because it would take FOREVER to input as many comics as you guys have into that system.

Anyway, that's why I keep two sources: one on my computer which I can easily back-up, and a web-based in case my computer screwed up or was in a house fire [hopefully not that one!].

Post by **JohnMayo** » Thu Mar 31, 2011 6:44 am

abysslord wrote:
BobBretall wrote:Personally, I'd not want to be keeping my collection tracked on a web-site. If the guy running it drops dead, is hit by a bus, or walks away from the hobby, you're screwed. Then again, if you only have a few 1000 comics, it would be a pain but not that unmanageable to re-enter them all.
The same could be said about anything you use on your computer. If your hard drive was destroyed, for whatever reason, you're out that way too unless you back it up somewhere. The risk of one vs. the other is probably lopsided, but I asked the admin at ComicBookRealm and he has plans in case anything happened to him or the site, so it's pretty safe and you can always export your data for a back-up in excel format or whatever. But for you or John I can see it not really working because it would take FOREVER to input as many comics as you guys have into that system.

Anyway, that's why I keep two sources: one on my computer which I can easily back-up, and a web-based in case my computer screwed up or was in a house fire [hopefully not that one!].

I have a mirrored data drive to protect against data loss and I put this sort of data in my DropBox so I have a copy on the web and on multiple computers.

The big problem with a website it the slow nature of the interface. It would simply take too long to enter in the data.

BobBretall · Post by **BobBretall** » Thu Mar 31, 2011 8:20 am

abysslord wrote: The same could be said about anything you use on your computer. If your hard drive was destroyed, for whatever reason, you're out that way too unless you back it up somewhere. The risk of one vs. the other is probably lopsided, but I asked the admin at ComicBookRealm and he has plans in case anything happened to him or the site, so it's pretty safe and you can always export your data for a back-up in excel format or whatever. But for you or John I can see it not really working because it would take FOREVER to input as many comics as you guys have into that system.

Anyway, that's why I keep two sources: one on my computer which I can easily back-up, and a web-based in case my computer screwed up or was in a house fire [hopefully not that one!].

I run backups also.

Did not know the CBR web-site let you export to an excel so you can run your own back-up. That said, I'd expect that to be pretty inefficient once you get over a certain size (though I'm not sure what that size is).

What is the reasonable data size that Excel can support? John, how does your Excel with 40k or so rows perform?

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