PRB: FoxPro DBF Opened/Saved by MacWord Alters File Type

ID: Q142795

2.60a 3.00b MACINTOSH kbinterop kbprb

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft FoxPro for Macintosh, version 2.6a
Microsoft Visual FoxPro for Macintosh, version 3.0b

SYMPTOMS

If a Microsoft FoxPro table is opened and converted to a Microsoft Word 6.0 for Macintosh document and saved in Macintosh Word, it is no longer a FoxPro table. Further attempts to open the table in Microsoft FoxPro will result is the following error message:

   Not a table/DBF

CAUSE

The FoxPro-dBASE converter used in Microsoft Word for Macintosh can't save the file back to the original FoxPro format.

RESOLUTION

Because the file is now a Word document with the same name the original FoxPro DBF file, it must be saved to a format FoxPro can read, such as a text file. The following methods show how to do it.

Method One: Append to FoxPro Table as a Text File

1. In Microsoft Word for Macintosh, open the converted FoxPro table as a

   Word document by choosing Open from the File menu and All Files in the
   List Files of Type list box.

2. Click somewhere in the table. From the Table menu, choose Select Table.

   This should highlight the entire table.

3. From the Table menu, choose Convert Table to Text. Then select Commas

   and choose OK.

4. From the File menu, choose Save As. In the Save File as Type box, choose

   Text Only.

5. Create a table in Microsoft FoxPro for Macintosh by choosing New from

   the File menu. Select Table/DBF as the file type.

6. Enter the appropriate field name, type, and width to correspond with

   each field in the text file saved in step 4.

7. With this new table open, choose Append From...on the Database menu.

   In the File Type drop-down list, choose Delimited with Commas. Click the
   From...button and locate the text file created in step 4 above and hit
   OK. Then hit the Append push button.

Method Two: Use Microsoft Excel 5.0 to Read or Convert to the Text File

1. Complete steps 1-4 in method one.

2. Open Microsoft Excel 5.0 for the Macintosh. From the File menu, choose

   Open. In List Files of Type box, choose Text files. Open the text file
   from step 4 of method one.

3. From the File menu, choose Save As. In the Save File as Type box, choose

   DBF 4. This new file can simply be opened in FoxPro as a table/DBF.

   NOTE: If you are using Excel 4.0 or an earlier version, check the
   Microsoft Excel manuals on the procedure used to save the spreadsheet
   file in a DBF format. Also, this step could be broken into another
   method. Instead of saving the file as a DBF from Microsoft Excel, you
   could save the file as a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet XLS version 4 or
   earlier. This is because FoxPro cannot open Microsoft Excel 5.0
   spreadsheets. Then in FoxPro, issue the following command in the Command
   window, with the correct path to the spreadsheet:

   IMPORT FROM "Macintosh HD:Excel:test.txt" TYPE XLS

Method Three: Look for Backup .BAK of the Table in FoxPro

1. Check the hard disk for the existence of the old table name with a .bak

   extension. If one exists, then in FoxPro, choose Open from the File
   menu. Select Table/DBF in the Type list box, and select the All Files
   check box. Find the .bak file, and choose Open. The data in this table
   will probably be old, but the structure should be the same.

2. This table structure can be used in place of step 6 in method one, or

   the text file can be appended directly to the end of this backup table
   by following step 7 in method one. If you want to use this table
   structure but start with an empty database, it is probably better to
   copy the structure to another table rather that delete all records in
   the .bak file. This way there would be a backup of the old data. After
   following step 1 in this section, type the following commands in the
   Command window:

   COPY STRUCTURE TO temp
   USE temp

   This will copy the structure to another table named temp and then open
   the table. From here, follow step 7 in method one to append the text
   file to this table.

STATUS

This behavior is by design.

MORE INFORMATION

This problem is most likely to occur when a FoxPro table is used in a Microsoft Word for the Macintosh mail merge. After the mail merge has completed and the user begins to close the documents in the mail merge, the user will receive this warning message:

   Document 1 is a mail merge main document that is
   attached to a data source <table.dbf> that has not been
   saved. Do you want to save <table.dbf>?

   <Yes> <No> <Cancel> <Help>

If you click Yes, the table is no longer a FoxPro table. It is saved as a Word table in a Word document. Word changes the file type to WGBN for Word from FoxPro's APPL, and it changes the creator type to MSWD for Word from FoxPro's FOXX. This can be checked by opening the file in Apple's Resource Editor, ResEdit. In addition, Word replaces the FoxPro file header with a Word header, so you can't simply use ResEdit to change the creator and file types. All attempts to open the file in FoxPro will result in the error message given in the "Symptoms" section of thie article.

Additional reference words: VFoxMac 3.00b 2.60a FoxMac KBCategory: kbinterop kbprb KBSubcategory: FxinteropGeneral

Keywords          : FxinteropGeneral 
Version           : 2.60a 3.00b
Platform          : MACINTOSH