pgt@hpfcso.HP.COM (Paul G. Tobin) (01/30/91)
Does anyone know of a *reasonably* easy way to create WP5.1 secondary merge files from dBase III+? I know of 1 very ugly path, consisting of writing some spreadsheet format file from dBase, running the "convert" program supplied with WP5.1, and editing out the first record in the resulting secondary merge file. Yick -- that's too complicated and error prone for *any* user, much less the somewhat inexperienced users who'll be using this setup. My goal, obviously, would be to have WP read the pertinent records and fields directly from a dBase file. I realize that's probably a pipe dream ;-<, but I'd like to come close to that form of seamless integration between the two applications. Does anyone know if FoxBase can write WP merge files? Maybe I'll call Fox this week. Any suggestions from you extremely experienced folks would be appreciated. Thanks for your help. Paul Tobin pgt@hpfcla.fc.hp.com
burgoyne@eng.umd.edu (John R. Burgoyne) (01/31/91)
In article <15600004@hpfcso.HP.COM> pgt@hpfcso.HP.COM (Paul G. Tobin) writes: > > Does anyone know of a *reasonably* easy way to create WP5.1 >secondary merge files from dBase III+? I know of 1 very ugly path, >consisting of writing some spreadsheet format file from dBase, running >the "convert" program supplied with WP5.1, and editing out the first >record in the resulting secondary merge file. Yick -- that's too >complicated and error prone for *any* user, much less the somewhat >inexperienced users who'll be using this setup. > I create labels in DBASE which have the appropriate fields, then export the results to a disk file (ASCII). I then have a couple of WP macros which clean up the ASCII file and put in the appropriate End Field, End Record commands. This then merges quite well with the WP primary file. Robert
les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) (01/31/91)
In article <15600004@hpfcso.HP.COM> pgt@hpfcso.HP.COM (Paul G. Tobin) writes: > > Does anyone know of a *reasonably* easy way to create WP5.1 >secondary merge files from dBase III+? As of 5.0 at least (haven't tried with 5.1) you could just use an ascii file with ^R (that's control-R) as a field terminator and ^E as the record terminator. If your report writer lets you imbed control characters just make a file that looks like: Field1^R Field2 multi-line fields are OK^R Field3^R ^E ..repeat Les Mikesell les@chinet.chi.il.us
jgb1@ra.MsState.Edu (John G. Burrell) (01/31/91)
In <15600004@hpfcso.HP.COM> pgt@hpfcso.HP.COM (Paul G. Tobin) writes: > Does anyone know of a *reasonably* easy way to create WP5.1 >secondary merge files from dBase III+? I know of 1 very ugly path, >consisting of writing some spreadsheet format file from dBase, running >the "convert" program supplied with WP5.1, and editing out the first >seamless integration between the two applications. Does anyone know >if FoxBase can write WP merge files? Maybe I'll call Fox this week. > Any suggestions from you extremely experienced folks would be >appreciated. Thanks for your help. > Paul Tobin > pgt@hpfcla.fc.hp.com Well, I didn't like it either, so I wrote a Clipper program to convert a dBase III/+/IV database to a WordPerfect 5.1 merge file. It's been awhile since I've looked at it, but I believe it ports ALL fields and ALL records -- Should be pretty easy to select only what you really need from within dbase and write to some temporary database, then run this program to do the final conversion. I guess I'm offering this program y'all :-). If anyone is interested, E-MAIL me and I'll see about setting up an anonymous ftp for it. It will probably take a few days to verify the program still works, write a little documentation and get it out there for ftp. Jay jgb1@Ra.MsState.Edu -- Jay Burrell Computing Center Mississippi State University