Excel 2007 to DBF Conversion

Beginning MS Excel 2007, Microsoft dropped it's support for saving Excel files to DBF format among other file types available prior to this version. I don't suppose all users need to utilize this feature all the time but those who do have their reasons. They might be working with the census department, or just having fun converting spreadsheets to DBF and opening them with their favorite DB Editor like Access or FoxPro etc..

But there are still ways to convert your spreadsheet to the beloved DBF format should you really need to and I'll show you ways that I know how.

Import / Export Procedure

For this example, I created a spreadsheet file filled with random numbers named Random.xlsxThis is obviously a spreadsheet but for this procedure, we will open it with MS Access. Yes, MS Access will be used to import and ultimately export to DBF.

Using OpenOffice

Let's take the same file but this time we will use OpenOffice. OpenOffice is capable of reading MS Office files with great accuracy. And the good part is, it can save your file directly to dBase format.

Now there are commercial programs that can perform the same job but I don't like to use those when I have an alternative and I don't have to pay just for this purpose. That's about it.

I don't know if this will help many people, but hey, I have to post something right?

:D

Update:
I found this post which shows how to use VBScript to convert from Excel to DBF.
http://nerds-central.blogspot.com/2007/12/write-dbf-file-from-excel-2007-with.html

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