Bring back .dbf in Excel

[Laura]

Please bring back .dbf extension in Excel. This is such an important
extension in the work that we do and makes my work life much easier.

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http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...4-d51fdc8b83ff&dg=microsoft.public.excel.misc

 

[Duke Carey]

It surely doesn't make your life easier, but you can still (in Access 2007,
that is) import and export dbf files. You may simply have to use Access as a
midway stop in your trek between Excel and dbf files.

It's a foregone conclusion that Microsoft will put little or no work into
adding dbf capabilities to Excel. dbf files are used less and less
frequently as time goes by and there isn't much return on investment in
prolonging support for file formats whose use is dwindling.

 

[Harlan Grove]

Please bring back .dbf extension in Excel. This is such an
important extension in the work that we do and makes my work life
much easier.

....

Microsoft dropped file I/O support for many file formats with Excel
2007. It was intentional, so MSFT has its reasons. Those could include
that there may be so few Excel 2007 users who still work with DBF
files that dropping DBF I/O support would reduce revenues by less than
the cost of updating their existing DBF I/O code to work in Excel
2007. If you're using Excel 2007 but also need to work with DBF files,
either you didn't check the specs before buying Excel/Office 2007
yourself, or the IT/IS department buyers who bought it for you to use
don't really give a damn that you or others may still need to work
with DBF files. If the latter, you should ask IT/IS to figure out what
additional software they need to give you so that you can still work
with DBF files since the odds are hugely against you that Microsoft
will ever again provide DBF I/O support in Excel.

 

[Dan]

I see *zero* work required to "add" dbf capabilities to Excel 2007. Just use
the *same code* as was in previous versions of Excel. The dbf format has not
changed in years. The benefit is that Microsoft would continue to make Excel
a useful tool for managing all types of data. Excluding data on purpose just
cripples the tool into something useless. The rationalie is that Microsoft
wants me to go thru 20 steps instead of 5? That's supposed to help make my
life easier?

What is the URL of the Excel Development Team suggestion box?

 

[Ileiry]

Those of us who do mapping and Geographic Information Systems do use DBF
files regularly. I don't know how Microsoft have come to the conclusion that
DBF files are no more in use.
the problem for the moment is that we have to stick with excel 2003, and
problem arises when some colleagues would upgrade to 2007

 

[TDR]

I use GIS regularly and made the mistake of installing Office 2007. I do,
however, use Access as an intermediary database management program so the
current import/export options (e.g. External Data-More-get .dbf file) are
sufficient in Access 2007. However, when doing experimental work in Excel I
am unable to open .dbf files directly, which requires the extra step of
importing and exporting through Access from ArcGIS and vice-versa. I
therefore share the general sentiments of frustration with Office 2007.

 

[Radiomo]

it is possible to use "export to dbf" funtion in ArcCatalog to convert .xls
files to .dbf. It works, but there si still the limitation on being able to
make simple edits to a .dbf using Excel 2007. .dbf files can be opened in
Excel 2007, but they cannot be saved to that format.

When I have an .xls file of lat-long points that need to be mapped, I need a
..dbf file to do that easily -- .xls file imports into ArcMap don't result in
the same functionality.

 

[ASCIIraider]

Ummm... sorry guys but you are talking about one of the most useless and incompetent software companies on the planet. What do you expect?

If Micro$oft ever gets its act together it will be a miracle. The organisation lacks decent leadership and as long as that exists M$ will continue to pump out crap software. Vista is the biggest load of dogsh#t around, especially when compared to MacOS and even Linux. It's sad... damn you Jobs!! Why couldn't you see what Bill was up to?

I'd write more but Windows keeps freezing up...

We need someone like Branson to run Microslack, now there's a true visionary who knows what the people want and is happy to deliver.

*** Down with the Fourth Reich of Microsoft ***

 

[Wayne Wessel]

I have just had to upgrade due to others creating files in the new format and
just found dbf is missing. I use dbf when doing Citect Scada development as
this is the format of almost all it's files.

As an interm solution, I am using OpenOffice Calc, 9MB if you do a custom
install, although I have installed the full thing as I also use this at home
so might be usefull on my work computer too.

 

[Ed Watkinson]

Hi,

My company Target Websites www.targetwebsites.co.uk recently started using Goldmine and had this problem that to import into Goldmine you need to save a XLS as a DBF. However, there IS a work around within Office 2007.

- In Excel 2007, Go to "file > Save As.." and choose .csv

- Now open Access 2007 and Choose import data and select the csv file

- The data then loads into a table and from there you can export the data from Access into a DBF file! Choosing either DBF3, DBF4, DBF5

Hope this helps everyone!

Ed
Target Websites & SEO - http://www.targetwebsites.co.uk

 

[Bhaskar]

incase that is not possible, it can be added as a patch if it is available,
any idea on that?

 

[randy_vetter]

I'm switching to OpenOffice. DBF files are supported

Randy