I'll try my hand at the Excel question too. I am a Mac person and have done
many transfers of data from Excel documents into Filemaker. You may be able
to import from the file you have directly without ever opening it in Excel.
FileMaker has the capability of importing from Excel docs. If I've already
sent a message about this question, forgive the duplication; if this is off
track (not answering the actual question) I apologize.
The first thing to try is:
-Open FileMaker (not Ebase for the time being)
-Click "Open Existing File" from the Open screen or "Open File" from the
File Menu if you're past the initial open screen.
-Select "Excel" from the "Show Files" area of the dialogue box
-Browse to locate your Excel file. If you can't locate it where it should
be, there's a good chance it's not really an Excel file (like the earlier
message response mentioned that possible data transfer problems may have
corrupted it).
-If it is an Excel file and shows up when browsing, select it and click
open.
-FileMaker will ask you if the first row contains column headings which
should be field names. Select this because it is probably true. Filemaker
will create a database file with the column headings as field names and the
data on subsequent rows will be in these fields. If the Excel file was set
up correctly, this is what your file probably is like.
-Once you click okay, the Filemaker will ask you to name the new file which
will be a Filemaker database file. Pick a name and click okay and Filemaker
will open your new file.
-Now you should, hopefully, be looking a table view of your data with column
headings across the top and data in the table below. The column headings
will be your field names. If these column headings are "F1, F2," etc., this
means that the first row in the Excel spreadsheet did not contain headings
with names. If this is the case you will need to analyze the data more
closely and determine if you can whip it into shape, i.e. name the fields in
"Define Fields" and make sure the data in the file is stored in the correct
fields.
If this seems impossible, it might just be impossible and you should try to
open the file in Excel itself and start over. In other words, open it in
Excel, make sure that the top row of your spreadsheet contains the name
describing the data in the columns beneath it (names that will be field
names in Filemaker) and start this process over again.
Otherwise read the following steps and you might be okay...
-If everything looks okay, i.e. the gray top row has names that correspond
to the data in the columns/rows underneath, you can save the file.
-At this point you can open your ebase file and follow the instructions (in
the ebase manual) on importing data using the new file you just created as
the source file matching the fields to their corresponding fields in ebase.
Barry Madore
--
Barry Madore
Technology Circuit Rider
MAP for Nonprofits
651/774-9364 Direct
651/647-1216 MAP
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.mapnp.org
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