[PLUG] MS Access -> ? for OOo

[John Jason Jordan]

On Sun, 10 Feb 2008 16:04:54 -0800 (PST)
Rich Shepard <rshepard at appl-ecosys.com> dijo:

>    Step back a bit, if you can, and learn something about database systems so
> you can make an informed decision. SQLite would probably work for you, but
> you'll need to learn SQL and master the simple command line interface. Yes,
> CLI! But, it works well.
> 
> > Also, does anyone know if there is anything in Linux-land that can read
> > the Access data?
> 
>    Yes, there is. <http://mdbtools.sourceforge.net/>
> 
>    If you're going to be using databases to any extent, I highly recommend
> Rick van der Lann's "Introduction to SQL, 4th Edition."

Thanks for all the suggestions. I installed mdbtools, but there is no
documentation for it. I guess you're supposed to be born knowing how to
use it. 

I already had Kexi installed (part of KOffice), so I gave it a shot.
Happily it opened the MS Access database just fine. It lost the queries
and the one form in the Access file, but all of them are really simple
and easy to recreate. It's a GUI, so it makes it much easier for
dummies to use. In fact, it's very Access-like.

However, OOo can't seem to grok the Kexi file any better than it could
the Access file. I don't know what's the matter with OOo and databases.
It's easy to merge data once you get OOo to read the database file, but
you have to "register" the database with OOo before it can read the
data. And the registration process is hopelessly unintuitive. 

I also tried KWord and I can't find the right buttons to get it to see
the Kexi database either. <sigh>.

Oh well, at least I've got the data out of Access into an open source
file format. I did discover that I can export the data as .csv from
Kexi and OOo can read the .csv file. However I'm not sure I want to
keep my data in .csv format. From past experience there are problems
with delimiters when you need funny characters in a field (and I do
that a lot).

I'll keep poking at things. Meantime further suggestions are welcome.