Most suitable language for database entry, Windows folder creation, MS Office document manipulation

[brent William wilson]

So what i'd like to do is link a database to a GUI that people can easily add information into the database. The next step is to get that information and populate it into Microsoft office documents such as word, excel, powerpoint etc. And create folder structures within Windows (or the cloud, but not too sure about that at the moment because I can't seem to find anything with large enough business storage).

At the moment I am just using VBA within excel and word to pull the data from the database and also VBA to create the folder structures. To enter the data, this is just done within the database itself (we are using airtable, although previously I used mySQL and had the data entered in via a userform and VBA.) The problem with the VBA is that if you can access the code, you can find the API key and password. Is there anyway you can hide this like you can with frontend/backend type arrangements?

It's all a little clunky and I would like to make it nicer. I've dabbled in javascript and this would be OK with the database entry side of things and I think word/excel now allows javascript add-ins to be created. But I don't think it works to create folder directories within Windows.

So having said all that. What do people think would be the most suitable combo of software to achieve the above in a clean fashion? C#? I really only know VBA, Javascript, HTML, CSS and did a little bit of C+ and machine language for a certain microcontroller at uni. But am happy to learn anything and with the Covid-19 lock down I may have a bit of spare time on my hands.

Probably a bit rambly, but any help or follow up questions much appreciated!

[Campbell Ritchie]

Welcome to the Ranch

I shall duplicate your post in other fora and maybe you will get noticed more.

[Campbell Ritchie]

I know a lot of MS document access is done in C# and they like Linq, but I don't know much more than that. Have you tried the Apache Poi suite of programs?

[Tim Holloway]

JoseBanks Banks wrote:Aren't MS office documents written in a specific language? Why choose a language.

No. Despite Microsoft's abortive efforts to effectively turn documents into programs via OLE, MS Office documents are still data, not programs and thus not "written in a programming language". Actually, the current-day file forms for Office tend to be a collection of XML files contained in a ZIP file.

For general database work, most filesystem operations, and MS Office document work, virtually any popular programming language will do. Java in particular, but other language like Python as well.

Of course, if you're doing stuff that talks to the Windows-specific API services, the .Net platform is designed for that. But these days, designing software that only runs on Windows can really limit you.