Installing Finance::Quote

[Gill and Geoff]

Hi Derek

Thanks for your message, apologies for the delay in replying, been away for
a few days.

My investment accounts are now all set up, the problem was that I was
leaving the "symbol/abbreviation" box blank as I didn't know what the
symbols were! My investments are all in the UK, as ISAs, which I think are
similar to US Mutual Funds, ie Funds investing in lots of different
companies, therefore not having a symbol. So I just filled the box with an
abbreviation of the fund and hey presto the OK button was available!

Many thanks for your help
Best wishes Gill Harding


-----Original Message-----
From: Derek Atkins [mailto:warlord at MIT.EDU] 
Sent: 18 September 2008 14:55
To: Gill and Geoff
Cc: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
Subject: Re: Installing Finance::Quote

Hi,

Please remember to CC gnucash-user on all replies using your
mailer's Reply-To-List or Reply-All functionality..

"Gill and Geoff" <gillandgeoff at telefonica.net> writes:

> Hi Derek
>
> Thanks for your reply regarding my problems with setting up Stock
Accounts.
> I have now installed Finance ::Quote following your instructions, but am
> still unable to complete opening new stock accounts. When I get to the
> Select Security Dialogue box and select New, the New Security dialogue box
> now has 'Get on Line Quotes' highlighted, but at the bottom of the page
the
> 'OK' button is not highlighted, the only choices being 'Help' or 'Cancel'.
> Am I doing something wrong??

Have you filled in the "Full name" and "Symbol/abbreviation" for your
new Stock?

> Yes, my OS is Windows XP, and I would reiterate that I'm a
> non-computer-literate idiot.  Whats a PDF and whats acroread???

PDF is a document format.
Acroread == Adobe Viewer == program to read PDFs

I suggest you google PDF for more information if you're curious.

> Help! Gill Harding

-derek

>  -----Original Message-----
> From: Derek Atkins [mailto:warlord at MIT.EDU] 
> Sent: 17 September 2008 06:30
> To: Gill and Geoff
> Cc: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> Subject: Re: Installing Finance::Quote
>
> Hi,
>
> "Gill and Geoff" <gillandgeoff at telefonica.net> writes:
>
>> Hi there
>>
>> I recently downloaded GnuCash and have happily set up Asset & expense
>> accounts etc, but am now having problems opening investment accounts
> because
>> Finance::Quote is not installed, ie on the New Security page there's a
>> message saying 'Warning: Finance::Quote not properly installed' and only
> the
>> Help & Cancel buttons are available.  Your Tutorial says stock prices can
> be
>> updated manually, but you cant do that until you've set up the stock
>> account???
>
> Well, you cannot set stock prices until you create the GnuCash commodity
> for the stock, and the easiest way to do THAT is to create a Stock
Account.
> Note that you do NOT need F::Q in order to account for stocks in GnuCash.
> You only need F::Q if you want to download stock prices.  You can always
> enter in those prices manually.
>
> But F::Q has nothing to do with your stock accounts.
>
>> I found the instructions for installing Finance::Quote too daunting to
>> attempt - I got lost after 'close down GnuCash.'  I'll be quite happy to
>> manually update prices if you can tell me how to open the accounts.  If,
> not
>> can you send me a non-computer-literate idiots guide to installing it?
>
> You didn't say what OS/Distro you're running.  However, based on
> your printing question below you're on Windows.  So, in order to install
> F::Q you need to download and install Active Perl 5.8 and then run
> [Start] -> All Programs -> GnuCash -> Install automatic quote grabber
>
> As for how to "open the accounts" -- have you read the documentation?
> The chapter on investments:
>
>   http://svn.gnucash.org/docs/guide/chapter8.html
>
> Even goes into the hierarchy you want:
>
>   http://svn.gnucash.org/docs/guide/invest_accounts1.html
>
> And if you can't figure out how to create a new account:
>
>   http://svn.gnucash.org/docs/guide/accts-examples1.html
>
> You just need to create a new account for each stock.  Click "New
Account",
> select the proper parent, then select type "Stock", then select/create
> the stock commodity.
>
>> I've also got a problem with printing reports - I tried printing a trial
>> balance, it looked fine on print review, but the hard copy was printed in
>> mirror image and reverse order!!
>
> This is a known issue on Windows.  The current best workaround is to
> generate a PDF and then you can print that from something like
> acroread.
>
>> Any suggestions?
>>
>> Many thanks Gill Harding
>
>> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
>> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
>
> -derek
>
> -- 
>        Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
>        Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
>        URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
>        warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available
>
>
>
>

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available