HTML to call up individual files or parts of a file?

The original file is PDF or Excel?

[Heartache]

I have here an excel file with approximately 500 rows, each row corresponding to a different user.

I would love to have things set up so that each user could put in a username and/or password and access JUST his or her row.

I've been told by a friend it is possible to automate putting each row into a seperate, password-protected, PDF file, so that may be a start -- I would just need some kind of code that could pull up a login screen that could perhaps use the username field to pull up the correct file, and then the password field to open the file up.

Does the concept make sense? If not, please ask me to re-explain it.

If you're understanding what I mean, how difficult do you think it would be to create such a system? It does not have to involve PDFs at all, but I would like something that uses some kind of password (for example, the data in the first column of each row) to only call up a single row in this table at a time

[webdoctor]

What kind of system are you running on? Windows/Linux?

Do you have any kind of scripting experience: .aspx, .asp, .php, .jsp - that sort of thing?

[encyclo]

Rather than using an Excel file, you would be much better-off using a database such as MySQL or MS-SQL, dependent on the server you are running and which technologies you hacve available. A database is much more adaptable than a simple spreadsheet and would be ideally suited to this scenario.