Using Spreadsheets and Databases ================================ CellProfiler can save measurements as a *spreadsheet* or as a *database*. Which format you use will depend on some of the considerations below: - *Learning curve:* Applications that handle spreadsheets (e.g., Excel, `Calc`_ or `Google Docs`_) are easy for beginners to use. Databases are more sophisticated and require knowledge of specialized languages (e.g., MySQL, Oracle, etc); a popular freeware access tool is `SQLyog`_. - *Capacity and speed:* Databases are designed to hold larger amounts of data than spreadsheets. Spreadsheets may contain a few thousand rows of data, whereas databases can hold many millions of rows of data. Accessing a particular portion of data in a database is optimized for speed. - *Downstream application:* If you wish to use Excel or another simple tool to analyze your data, a spreadsheet is likely the best choice. If you intend to use CellProfiler Analyst, you must create a database. If you plan to use a scripting language, most languages have ways to import data from either format. .. _Calc: http://www.libreoffice.org/discover/calc/ .. _Google Docs: http://docs.google.com .. _SQLyog: http://www.webyog.com/