From people new to databases for the web a question I have often been asked is, “What is an easy way to prepare data for inserting to a database table?”

If you have a spreadsheet software like Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice Calc, have you considered the power of that program to prepare data? Before you think about finding software to convert spreadsheets to MySQL, Postgre SQL or other database tables for web applications, have a look at this how-to for creating SQL INSERT statements.