{ WHEN THIS ARTICLE IS READY, THE PROGRAM WILL BE DOWNLOADABLE AT THE DOWNLOAD SITE }
Hi All,
Ever got tired at work looking for information that could be anywhere? Is it:
- one of the network shares?
- somewhere on a website, where is the link?
- somewhere on share-point?
- on my personal disk, somewhere in my directory structure?
- still in my email?
It's always the big question, WHERE IS IT? And before you found it, if you find it, then you probably went through lots of menu's, links to sites, and emails or directory structures.... taking lots of your time.
Hartsinck.com Personal Knowledge Base
What you'd need, to keep your time for searching short, is a tool that you can maintain yourself and what is easy to use for storing information about your areas of interest.. So out of a bit of frustration at work, I wrote a program with the help of our Lord, to manage your knowledge subjects in a program. In this case a single Excel file that looks like an application.
Register knowledge subjects
PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE BASE is a program that is freely to use, for this purpose. Please check out the video on YOUTUBE to learn more about it.
In the personal knowledge base you can categorize your subjects to your own customization, you can add notes in a built in rich text editor, add links to your repository directory for local files, or links to websites. You can launch from this application any program associated with the file or link. (Like .doc launches MS Word, etc.).
Task manager
Besides links, you can also add tasks to any of the subjects you might be working on. And you can manage the tasks accordingly.
Search options
This program is not only about registering subject information but also for searching. The are three type of searches implemented:
- The string search to find a string in a record. So the string may be in any field of that record.
- Tag string search, a fast search that is based on searching in a tag-field, looking for the right tag.
- Category level search.
Requirements
Excel 2016 and higher
This programs is written in Excel Macro's so that means you need Excel to run it. I'd say that compatibility goes back as far as Excel 2016. That's when I still saw may code running about a year ago.
Windows OS
I have not tested this program below versions of Windows 10. I have tested Personal Knowledge Base in Windows 10 and Windows 11. Maybe someone can test for me on Windows 7, my favorite Windows OS.
Monitor resolution
Personal Knowledge Base is written to have good oversight of your data. Therefore it uses a large amount of your screen. And the interface-forms have fixed sizes. You will need a screen that has a resolution of at least 1920 x 1080 pixels. That means a FULL HD screen.
Security
For some strange reason I get a warning from the Windows Operating System when I run the Personal Knowledge Base program that my program uses ActiveX controls. Now this warning is given only, I expect, because I use an InkEdit control for making different fonts, font sizes, type faces and colors in a text section of a knowledge record. But this is not something you can hack with as far as I know.
All the rest of the controls are standard Microsoft Form controls - used for labels, buttons, list boxes, drop-down lists, text boxes, radio buttons and frames.
For the IT crowd, here are the libraries used for this Excel Macro program:
Warning / Important information for downloading
The best and the most secure way to get the Personal Knowledge Base program is via download at hartsinck.com download site. Then you are sure that this program is in it's original state. It does not contain any hacks or malicious code. If you decide to download, the file comes with the file extension .xlsx. This is done for security reasons, because most browsers will not let you download an macro enabled document. Once downloaded, and you gave this program a spot in a directory then, in order to enable the macro's, you'll have to rename the file extension to .xlsm.
Before use, make a few directories like under "my documents" and create two maps (directories):
- C:\Users\<username>\Documents\Knowledge Base
- C:\Users\<username>\Documents\Knowledge Base\Repository
You can copy Knowledge Base to the first directory. Both directories you are to match with the setup you will be confronted with when starting up for the first time.
Excel Limitations Negligible
Personal Knowledge Base program is actually a program the uses an in-memory database. Just as Excel works by nature. So it does not connect to any database, it is in Excel itself. If you know the limitations of Excel then you might be able to project that to this program as well. If you look how the program will be used. It will probably never contain more than a few hundred to a few thousand records in a practical sense. And for Excel that is really no show stopper, as I am used to work with Excel using tens of thousands of records.
Public License
This program "Hartsinck.com Personal Knowledge Base" is FREEWARE and can be used for FREE either at work or at home. There is NO WARRANTY of any kind given with this Excel VBA macro coded software. You use this software at your own risk. However the source code and the appearance of "Hartsinck.com Personal Knowledge Base" author protected. The VBA macro code you may not change nor the appearance of "Hartsinck.com Personal Knowledge Base".
Donations
If you'd like support my work then please consider a donation, any amount is welcome, and it is most appreciated. You can donate to my PayPal account: paypal.me/hartsinck.
Releases & Input
I am always happy to receive comments about the program. If you have suggestions for upcoming versions of "Hartsinck.com Personal Knowledge Base" you can send a mail to
For the next release I'll be focusing on import and export of knowledge items, between people in a community having a same purpose and wish to exchange knowledge items.