Conversion from Paradox to Access

[Don F]

My church has recently upgraded it's mixed collection of computers and OSs
to a donated group with Win XP pro installed and MS office 2003.
One of the computers uses Paradox and we would like to standardize so that
all use Access. I think that all that is used is the table data base but I
am not sure.
What is the best way to do this? I am not familiar with either program.
Searching Paradox for the DB extensions is a nightmare. Most important is
to save the data base files before I switch to the new software.
Thanks

 

[John Nurick]

Hi Don,

If you're not familiar with relational databases in general and Access
in particular, you could be facing quite a challenge.

Normally it's possible either to import the data from Paradox into
Access (using Access's File|Get External Data|Import command) or to
export it from Paradox into a format Access can read, such as dBASE
(DBF) or text (CSV). But that's all: anything the Paradox database has
in the way of forms, reports, mailing labels and so on will have to be
re-created using Access's own tools. It may be simpler to find a
ready-made database and import your data into that.

Whatever you do, be sure to retain at least one computer that runs
Paradox and has a copy of the database on it, at least until it is
certain that everything has been successfully transferred.

If you want to try importing the data into Access, locate the Paradox
data (which is in .DB and other files, probably all in the same folder
or folder and subfolders) and copy this to a computer with Access
installed.

If you have to export it from Paradox first, you need to identify all
the tables in the database (I'm not familiar with Paradox but as far as
I know this means every *.DB file in the dataase folder). Then create a
new folder and use Paradox to export each folder to dBase (DBF) format;
dBase IV should be OK. Make sure to use short names (no more than 8
characters followed by .DBF) for every file, and also (no more than 11
characters) for the folder: otherwise Access will get confused.

 

[Don F]

Thanks, John, for the quick reply.
I needed to know if the data transfer task was a trivial task. Your reply
has pointed out that I need to learn much more about what needs to be done.
I am not sure but I think that the data base is only a table of names and
addresses of church members. If that is true, doesn't that make the
transfer a lot easier?
I thought that a possible way of making the transfer would be to export
the Paradox data file to Excel and then import the Excel file into Access.
Would the installation of the MS Jet utility solve or does Jet have a
steep learning curve?
Thanks again,
Don

 

[John Nurick]

Hi Don,

If there's just a single table of names and addresses, yes, things
should be pretty simple. In fact you could do without Access altogether:
just export the list to Excel and maintain it as a spreadsheet. To print
mailing labels or form letters, use the Excel sheet as the data source
for a Word mailmerge.

If you do decide to go ahead with Access, I'd recommend DBF or CSV as
the intermediate format. Using Excel as the intermediate increases the
chance of confusing complications.

I'm not certain just what you mean by the MS Jet utility" but whatever
it is you don't need to worry about it. Jet is a database engine that's
installed as part of Office and/or Windows. When you tell Access to
create a new database (i.e. an MDB file), you are actually creating a
Jet database which Access manages for you.

 

[Don F]

Hi John,
The importing of the (many) Paradox (*.db) files into Access is no problem
using the import function. The data seems to be OK.
I will now have to find out what I need to do to replicate the forms,
reports, mailing lists, or any other functions that were in Paradox.
I am on my way to Barnes and Nobel to buy "MS Access 2003 Step by Step"
book which should probably tell me more than I need to know.
Thanks again for your help.
Don

 

[John Nurick]

Glad to help, Don. I'm sure you'll be back in these newsgroups as you
work your way through the task; and remember you can search previous
posts (e.g. via Google Groups).