Can gadget read data from Excel file?

Hi guys

I'd like to develop a gadget for learning Japanese alphabet (hiragana/katakana, and in next releases Kanji too). I wanna make something simple but effective like this:

[kanji Unicode character]

[pronunciation]

[meaning]

So, as you can see I need some kind of database where I can write/read all that data. I thought about Excel (Column A for "Kanji", Column B for "pronunciation", Column C for "meaning"). Will it work How can I get my data from .xls file
If not, can you advise me another database

Thanks in advance

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Can gadget read data from Excel file?

KevinBurton
I had a typo above (now fixed) - I said "MSHTML", but I really meant "MSXML". Use MSXML to read your XML file from inside your gadget. Here's some documentation:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp url=/library/en-us/xmlsdk/html/81f3de54-3b79-46dc-8e01-73ca2d94cdb5.asp
Goldfinger1
How about storing the database in an XML file You can even export from Excel to XML, and you can use MSXML to load and manipulate the XML.
TA123
Thanks Bruce for the reply.

I've thought about XML database first but......I just have no idea how it should look neither which software I have to use in order to create/edit a database. Can you advise me something

I just need something simple and flexible because I need to create a large amount of date (kanji, pronunciation, translation, kangi, pronunciation, translation, kanji, pronunciation, translation and so on) and wanna be able to update my gadget without headache with new data (of course I can't create 2000 kanji with my first release...). So Excel was just perfect for this purpose but I have no idea how to access that data (neither if I ever be able to do so, especially if user haven't Excel installed).

Anyway, when I'll be back at home I'll try to export from Excel to XML, I'm curious what it would look like.
Can gadget read data from Excel file?

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