I am a big fan of trying to get the data to a plain text level in case
of "weird things" that can happen with MS trying to read more
complicated stuff. Can you export it as a CSV file and then open it in
Excel and convert it to XLS?

-steve

Rich Pinder wrote:

>
> 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
>
>