This is not truly FireBird related, but the experience of all of you
using FB may solve my dilema. (well, I should say 'probably WILL solve
my dilema' - this list has been so helpful over the years !)

From time to time, I'm baffled why some data files exported in a
certain format will read just fine on some machines...and will not on
others. I usually 'workaround' it, and grumble at Microsoft (the
programs that bonk ususally are MS related).

In specific, today I'm working with DBase, and a large group of files
(for an ongoing project), that will require lots of 'exporting' - and
I'd like to solve the issue. I suspect that it may have to do with
certain column attributes in FB, ... and that they don't translate well
into DBase - but it may actually be a 'bug' in MS Ofice.

Well, let me clarify:

I have FB 1.5 - going thru Upscene's DBWorkbench (I am convinced FB and
DBW are not the culpret) - exporting to a .dbf - that reads just FINE
on a Win32 machine using MS Office Excel (v2003, sp3)... but on that
very same machine, using MS Word + Merge.... it fails.

BUT - here's a clue - on this SAME client machine, if I use a very
small 'test' .DBF (with just a few, Char fields), the MS Word reads
the file just fine - so the .dbf Driver is at least working inside
Word..on SOME files

I'm interested in any stories of experience you all might share

Thanks
Rich Pinder
USC School of Medicine