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#1
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Use of VisualFoxpro 8 data source.
A couple of years ago I had great trouble grtting Word97 to mailmerge from
Foxpro 2.0 table data sources. Now I am having similar trouble getting Word2003 to mailmerge from a VFP8 table. Whether I select "All data sources" or "Dbase files" (no mention of FoxPro!) I get "Word was unable to open the data source" I know there is nothing wrong with my table. It works fine with Word2000 (that's how I checked the table is OK), but my client uses Word2003 What hoops do I have to jump through to get Word2003 to work properly? They're both standard MS products for God's sake ! Jim Hawkins |
#2
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As far as I know, you either have to connect to FoxPro using ODBC or OLEDB.
To do the former, you need to go into the ODBC Administrator (look in the Control Panel) and create a DSN for FoxPro. Unfortunately, when you select the FoxPro driver, you will probably see a message that you have to upgrade it and will be directed to http://msdn.microsoft.com/vfoxpro/downloads/ . From there, follow the link to Product Updates. Once you have created a DSN, you will need to check Word Tools|Options|General|Confirm conversions at open, then go through the data source selection process, select the dbf (or the dbc), and select the appropriate DSN when offered (if you don't see it in the list, check the "Show All" box. If that doesn't work , you may need to go into MS Query, which is now an option in the Tools menu in the top right corner of the Select Data Source dialog. To use OLEDB, you will need to get and install the provider (same URL as above), then use the New Source button in the Word Select Data Source dialog, pick "Other/Advanced", pick the FoxPro driver, and enter any necessary configuration information. I've only done FoxPro connections as experiments and can't really remember whether it was easy or difficult, but vaguely remember the OLEDB approach being harder. Peter Jamieson "Jim Hawkins" wrote in message ... A couple of years ago I had great trouble grtting Word97 to mailmerge from Foxpro 2.0 table data sources. Now I am having similar trouble getting Word2003 to mailmerge from a VFP8 table. Whether I select "All data sources" or "Dbase files" (no mention of FoxPro!) I get "Word was unable to open the data source" I know there is nothing wrong with my table. It works fine with Word2000 (that's how I checked the table is OK), but my client uses Word2003 What hoops do I have to jump through to get Word2003 to work properly? They're both standard MS products for God's sake ! Jim Hawkins |
#3
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"Peter Jamieson" wrote in message ... As far as I know, you either have to connect to FoxPro using ODBC or OLEDB. To do the former, you need to go into the ODBC Administrator (look in the Control Panel) and create a DSN for FoxPro. Unfortunately, when you select the FoxPro driver, you will probably see a message that you have to upgrade it and will be directed to http://msdn.microsoft.com/vfoxpro/downloads/ . From there, follow the link to Product Updates. Once you have created a DSN, you will need to check Word Tools|Options|General|Confirm conversions at open, then go through the data source selection process, select the dbf (or the dbc), and select the appropriate DSN when offered (if you don't see it in the list, check the "Show All" box. If that doesn't work , you may need to go into MS Query, which is now an option in the Tools menu in the top right corner of the Select Data Source dialog. To use OLEDB, you will need to get and install the provider (same URL as above), then use the New Source button in the Word Select Data Source dialog, pick "Other/Advanced", pick the FoxPro driver, and enter any necessary configuration information. I've only done FoxPro connections as experiments and can't really remember whether it was easy or difficult, but vaguely remember the OLEDB approach being harder. Peter Jamieson "Jim Hawkins" wrote in message ... A couple of years ago I had great trouble grtting Word97 to mailmerge from Foxpro 2.0 table data sources. Now I am having similar trouble getting Word2003 to mailmerge from a VFP8 table. Whether I select "All data sources" or "Dbase files" (no mention of FoxPro!) I get "Word was unable to open the data source" I know there is nothing wrong with my table. It works fine with Word2000 (that's how I checked the table is OK), but my client uses Word2003 What hoops do I have to jump through to get Word2003 to work properly? They're both standard MS products for God's sake ! Jim Hawkins Thanks for your help, Peter. I spent this morning trying to set it up - in vain. The VFPODBC.DLL driver is present in ..\system32 and correct. The ODBC Administrator shows :- An existing driver for VFP tables on the 'User DSN' tab. An existing driver for VFP tables on the 'System DSN' tab. No entry in the 'File DSN' tab. So I assume it wants one. So I click 'Add', select the VFP driver from the offerred list, and click 'Next' I then get a prompt "Type the name of the file data source you want to save this connection to." No idea what it wants here, so I try entering 'c:\temp\sevenday.dbf' (my VFP merge table). I also tried entering "c:\temp\sevenday.dsn' in case it was wanting a file ending in .dsn But in either case I got "A connection could not be made using the file data source parametrers entered." Any idea what it wants here ? Thanks in avance, Jim Hawkins .. |
#4
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First of all, you have to take a slightly different approach when connecting
to some types of ODBC data sources. I had forgotten that it was necessary in this case. You will either need to make the connection via MS Query (it's on the Tools menu in the Select Data Source dialog box) or using VBA. MS Query is an Office/Word SETUP option so you may not have it on your system but you can install it from the SETUP disks if you want. However, you only need MS Query to set up the connection, not to use it after that. So you can set it up in VBA instead, using something like the following, which assumes you have a User or System DSN called "Visual FoxPro Tables" and that your .dbf is in c:\mytables: Sub OpenFoxProTable() With ActiveDocument.MailMerge ' remove the old connection .MainDocumentType = wdNotAMergeDocument .MainDocumentType = wdDirectory .OpenDataSource _ Name:="", _ connection:="DSN=vVisual FoxPro Tables;SourceDB=c:\mytables;SourceType=DBF;Exclusi ve=No;BackgroundFetch=Yes;Collate=Machine;Null=Yes ;Deleted=Yes;", _ sqlstatement:="SELECT * FROM sevenday", _ subtype:=wdMergeSubTypeWord2000 End Sub Turning now to your text, An existing driver for VFP tables on the 'User DSN' tab. An existing driver for VFP tables on the 'System DSN' tab. The first thing to notice is that the things listed under the DSN tabs are not really "drivers" - they are "Data Source Names", which let you specify a driver and provide configuration details. So there can be many DSNs for a single driver. But the key thing is to ensure that the DSN is set up correctly. If you already had a VFP DSN, I would either delete it and start again, or leave the old one and create a new one. It could be a file DSN, but that doesn't help you avoid using MS Query or VBA and since it adds a complication I would avoid it. In essence, a User DSN is available to the current user, and a System DSN is available to any user on the system. As far as I know the only bit of configuration you need to do is to specify that the Database Type is a Free Table Directory (unless you are using a ..dbc, in which case, use the other option. You don't need to specify a folder. If you do, you should not have to specify a "SourceDB" in the connection string unless it is different from the one in the DSN. I hope that helps you get a bit further. Peter Jamieson "Jim Hawkins" wrote in message ... "Peter Jamieson" wrote in message ... As far as I know, you either have to connect to FoxPro using ODBC or OLEDB. To do the former, you need to go into the ODBC Administrator (look in the Control Panel) and create a DSN for FoxPro. Unfortunately, when you select the FoxPro driver, you will probably see a message that you have to upgrade it and will be directed to http://msdn.microsoft.com/vfoxpro/downloads/ . From there, follow the link to Product Updates. Once you have created a DSN, you will need to check Word Tools|Options|General|Confirm conversions at open, then go through the data source selection process, select the dbf (or the dbc), and select the appropriate DSN when offered (if you don't see it in the list, check the "Show All" box. If that doesn't work , you may need to go into MS Query, which is now an option in the Tools menu in the top right corner of the Select Data Source dialog. To use OLEDB, you will need to get and install the provider (same URL as above), then use the New Source button in the Word Select Data Source dialog, pick "Other/Advanced", pick the FoxPro driver, and enter any necessary configuration information. I've only done FoxPro connections as experiments and can't really remember whether it was easy or difficult, but vaguely remember the OLEDB approach being harder. Peter Jamieson "Jim Hawkins" wrote in message ... A couple of years ago I had great trouble grtting Word97 to mailmerge from Foxpro 2.0 table data sources. Now I am having similar trouble getting Word2003 to mailmerge from a VFP8 table. Whether I select "All data sources" or "Dbase files" (no mention of FoxPro!) I get "Word was unable to open the data source" I know there is nothing wrong with my table. It works fine with Word2000 (that's how I checked the table is OK), but my client uses Word2003 What hoops do I have to jump through to get Word2003 to work properly? They're both standard MS products for God's sake ! Jim Hawkins Thanks for your help, Peter. I spent this morning trying to set it up - in vain. The VFPODBC.DLL driver is present in ..\system32 and correct. The ODBC Administrator shows :- An existing driver for VFP tables on the 'User DSN' tab. An existing driver for VFP tables on the 'System DSN' tab. No entry in the 'File DSN' tab. So I assume it wants one. So I click 'Add', select the VFP driver from the offerred list, and click 'Next' I then get a prompt "Type the name of the file data source you want to save this connection to." No idea what it wants here, so I try entering 'c:\temp\sevenday.dbf' (my VFP merge table). I also tried entering "c:\temp\sevenday.dsn' in case it was wanting a file ending in .dsn But in either case I got "A connection could not be made using the file data source parametrers entered." Any idea what it wants here ? Thanks in avance, Jim Hawkins . |
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