will introduce you to the exciting new pivot table features in Excel 2007. Create quick summaries and pivot charts, add impact with traffic light icons, design calculated fields, group dates and numbers.
Excel List of All MP3 Files in a Directory
If you have a folder full of MP3 files, you can use Excel to create a list of the files, including title, artist, and song duration.
I pulled together a collection of music for a family wedding, and wanted to share the list with the bride and groom. Rather that write some code myself, I checked a few of my favourite Excel sites.
John Walkenbach has a download that looked perfect for the job. I downloaded his MP3 File Lister, opened the file, and clicked the Start button.
I was prompted to select a folder, and a few seconds later, the list was finished. It had included all the files from the top level folder, and all the subfolders.
The Artist and Genre columns were switched, as were the Album and Duration columns. The code is unlocked though, so you could easily change the headings if you encounter the same problem.
The file ran in Excel 2003 and Excel 2007, without any other problems.
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May 6th, 2009 at 11:19 am
Artist and Genre switched?
That's odd. I just downloaded it and tried it again. It worked fine. Maybe your MP3s are tagged incorrectly?
To view the tags, right-click an MP3 file, choose Properties, and then look at the Details tab.
May 6th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
No, the properties are fine, and the correct info shows up if I point to a file name in Windows Explorer.
Maybe you're using Vista, which apparently has different Column IDs.
I've got Windows XP on this machine.
May 6th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
Ah! Mystery solved.
I could make a snide comment about Microsoft here, but I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.
May 15th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
This works well but somewhere deep in my folder structure there is a file it does not like. Moving the folder with that file away from the tree being searched lets the macro finish. I need to do a bit more detective work to find the "bad" file.
May 16th, 2009 at 6:36 am
Nick, maybe it's a special character in the file name that the macro doesn't like. If you solve the mystery, please let us know.