creating a database file from excel

[Kendra V.]

I am saving a *.xls file to a *.dbf file. Some of the
cells in my *.xls file have many characters (30 or more).
However, when I save the *.xls file to a *.dbf the
character limit in each cell becomes 9 characters only.
How do I make a database file that will have a greater
character limit in each cell? I really need to create a
database file with this greater cell character limit as I
am importing the work into ArcCatalogue, which only reads
database files.

I am using Excel 2000, on the windows platform.

Thanks,
Kendra Vernon

 

[Dave Peterson]

I don't use dBase, (and I used xl2002), but if I set the font to courier new (a
nice fixed width font) and adjusted the columnwidth to show all the the data, it
saved my 30 character strings fine.

It looks like you could just widen the column sufficiently (skip the courier new
font), and it'll save ok. (but I like to see it fit nicely.)