filePro out to an existing Excel file

[Dennis Malen]

I've been doing this for about a year as our customers have requested the
same.

1. Create a filepro export that mirrors the spread sheet that you are using.
I create this in Unix.
2. FTP (or other approach) from Unix to your windows box.
3. Once I get the file in windows I use an extension of ".txt".
4. I open excel and import the .txt file. I do this because I have to make
some changes to some of the fields. You may not need to.

This works perfectly. I am sure there are some short cuts I could use to
bypass some of the manual things I do.

Dennis Malen
516.479.5912

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Schwartz-PC Support & Services" <mschw at athenet.net>
To: <filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2004 12:01 PM
Subject: RE: filePro out to an existing Excel file


> From: Harwyn Berens <hlb at pop3.wmis.net>

> I'm wondering if it's possible to get a filepro output form's output
> into an already existing Excel file.

I've done a *lot* of this work with spreadsheets.  The technique
that you should use will vary, depending on what the original spreadsheet
looks like and exactly what data has to be posted into it.

If the incoming Excel sheets are standardized, it might be easiest
to create a filePro file that exactly matches the layout of the Excel file,
then import the spreadsheet, work with it in filePro, then export the entire
sheet.  (I only mention this, because I had to spend a couple of hours
yesterday modifying some import and export functions for one of my customers
because *their* customer changed the layout of the incoming Excel sheet.)

Sometimes I just export a small .CSV or .DIF file out of filePro and
cut and paste columns into the original sheet.

fpODBC may be the ultimate method, if you have very complex Excel
spreadsheets with lots of interactive formulas in them.

To answer your question generically, because I don't have any of
your specific spreadsheets to look at and I don't know the layout of your
existing filePro files, I've never failed to find some kind of solution that
combines filePro with Excel in order to save my customers a big chunk of the
time that they would otherwise have to spend doing manual data entry.


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