Can you import a foxpro .fpt file into Microsoft Access

[Cindy Winegarden]

Hi Susan,

The FoxPro FPT file is the Memo portion of a FoxPro table. You wouldn't
import it by itself, it would come as part of the rest of the table. Memo
fields don't import correctly unless you use ODBC. The FoxPro and Visual
FoxPro ODBC driver is downloadable from
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vfoxpro/downloads/updates/default.aspx.

 

[Susan@Risetime]

Cindy,

Thanks for the quick reply. I used the ODBC driver for Visual Foxpro and
imported the .dbf file of the same name as the memo file, but I didn't get
the memo fields. I don't know what version of Foxpro the files were created
with, so maybe I should try another Foxpro driver. Do I only need the .dbf
and the .fpt or are there other files I need? Do I do anything special to
get the memo file to import, or should I only need to import the .dbf?

Thanks,
Susan

 

[Cindy Winegarden]

Hi Susan,

Did you not get the memo fields at all or did you get the columns with no
data in them? Ordinarily you just import the DBF and you don't need to do
anything with the FPT other than making sure it's present; if there are no
memo fields in the DBF then there won't be an FPT at all.

 

[Susan@Risetime]

Hi Cindy,

Thanks for the helpful hint. Since I don't know the structure of the foxpro
table, I decided to explore the Access table created with the import. When I
looked at the structure, I discovered a column defined as memo field that
looked empty, but when I was clicking around it it, I saw some data. I
quickly made a form and voila - the data is there but it just doesn't show in
table view because the memo fields contain documents that ALL start with a
blank line!

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. When you confirmed that I
was doing the import correctly, I was convinced that the data was really
there and all I had to do was find it. I will now be able to migrate my
customer from an old DOS version of Foxpro into the Windows world!! Thanks!!!

 

[Cindy Winegarden]

Hi Susan,

I'm glad it worked! Maybe you can do some sort of an update query that will
trim out the blank line.