Will File Maker Pro...

[paxtonandrew]

Will file maker pro 7 read databases made in MS Access, from a peecee? The reason I ask, is, i am in the middle of organizing a family reunion, and want to input family names and numbers into a database, in my spare time, and as my work is going to Word Perfect, my printing outlet is gone. If i burn the database to C.D, and try to open it in File maker, will it work?

Thanks for your help

 

[tubedogg]

I'm curious about this as well. My father stores his address book in an Access database and I'm trying to convince him to switch but there is no way he will unless he has some way to use that database.

 

[CanadaRAM]

Filemaker Pro will import data from a variety of sources, including CSV (Comma Separated Values), .TXT (Tab Text), .DBF, .XLS (Excel), .SYLK and .WK1.

MS Access can export data to many of these formats. So yes, you can transport data from one program to the other by export/import.

But: Filemaker Pro will not read an Access database file directly (nor can Access read a Filemaker database)

And when you transfer data, it is simply that; just the letters and numbers will come across. No screen layouts, no calculations, no scripts, no relationships, no graphics -- no "programming".

So if you have someone who is typing data in on a PC machine, and you want to move that data into Filmaker or another program for further sorting and calculating, that is possible - the easiest thing is to set up an Excel spreadsheet for typing the data into. Keep it simple, you just want to help them divide the data into different fields (columns in Excel), and to keep those fields consistent. A limitation of Excel is that it truncates data at 255 characters per cell, so is not suited for long text fields. A simple Access database would work too.

Data can be imported into Filemaker from a word processor as well, but the problem becomes consistency of data and separation of data into fields.

If you have an existing database in Access, you can export the data from MS Access (requires a Windows machine running Access), and then import the data into a similar database in Filemaker. You'll need to build the Filemaker database to match the Access database for field names and field types, then redo any programming and layouts in Filemaker. This takes some degree of skill in Filemaker.

There is also a program called FMProMigrator that automates the conversion of MS Access databases to Filemaker Pro 7 on OSX and Windows. http://www.filemaker.com/releases/1257.html

> as my work is going to Word Perfect, my printing outlet is gone

I don't understand this?


Thanks
Trevor
CanadaRAM.com