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Grrr! Excel 2007 can't save DBF format!
19 November 2010
Okay, so that's hardly news, since MS Office 2010 is already out, but I discovered this significant flaw in MS Office 2007 (what I have installed at home) today when I tried to save an Excel spreadsheet as a Database (DBF) format file. I used to do this at the store all the time, but this was the first time I needed to do it at home.
All previous versions of Excel (like 2003) have saved in DBF format. Not this one, or any later versions. Why would Microsoft drop this previously useful - even indispensable - feature? I can't find that out. They're an arbitrary bunch. Microsoft, I mean, not Excel users.
You can open a DBF file in Excel 2007 and 2010, but not save it in that format. Lots of traffic about this online, and not one user I found was happy about it. Most said it was a real pain in the ass and another user-hostile change made by Microsoft. It has driven users to seek alternate spreadsheets or buy file-format translators.
Here's my scenario: I create a mailing list in Excel. I save it as both CSV and DBF formats when I'm finished. I write a letter in Corel Draw and use its print-merge feature to personalize it with fields such as the recipient's name or address from the CSV database. Then I open the Avery-Dennison label program, Designpro (provided free with most boxes or packages of labels) and open the DBF file - the only database format Designpro supports - to create and customize the mailing labels.
I use these programs because they are familiar to me (I've been doing it this way for at least 12 years), but also because MS Word is so poor and clumsy for this sort of thing that it wastes more time trying to make it work in Word than it takes me to write, create, print and mail the letters in other formats. Labels in Word are a real headache.
I could create the labels in Corel Draw, too, but Corel's label feature has some quirks that annoy me. Avery-Dennison's program is fast and easy and I the label file is smaller than what Corel saves. It's for making one thing only: labels, and it has every Avery label pre-programmed into it as a template.
Corel will save the print-merge template but if you want to save the data with it, you need to merge everything into a new file. Which means if you have, say, 100 people to write to, it saves 100 pages, each one customized for the recipient. And if you only save the template, you have to do the print-merge anew every time you want to print anything from it. Otherwise all it shows is the field tags.
Also, Corel offers oodles of label templates, including most Avery labels (although not their CD/DVD labels, unfortunately). These print properly, with multiple copies on a page like labels should. But when you merge to file, each label gets its own page, so it's a bit clumsy to find anything specific in the file.
SO what I've had to do is to re-install my old version of Excel 2003 to get back a feature I find really useful. The change in excel has convinced me NOT to migrate to Office 2010 or later versions until this flaw is rectified, but instead to turn to Open Office instead. It's free, too!
All previous versions of Excel (like 2003) have saved in DBF format. Not this one, or any later versions. Why would Microsoft drop this previously useful - even indispensable - feature? I can't find that out. They're an arbitrary bunch. Microsoft, I mean, not Excel users.
You can open a DBF file in Excel 2007 and 2010, but not save it in that format. Lots of traffic about this online, and not one user I found was happy about it. Most said it was a real pain in the ass and another user-hostile change made by Microsoft. It has driven users to seek alternate spreadsheets or buy file-format translators.
Here's my scenario: I create a mailing list in Excel. I save it as both CSV and DBF formats when I'm finished. I write a letter in Corel Draw and use its print-merge feature to personalize it with fields such as the recipient's name or address from the CSV database. Then I open the Avery-Dennison label program, Designpro (provided free with most boxes or packages of labels) and open the DBF file - the only database format Designpro supports - to create and customize the mailing labels.
I use these programs because they are familiar to me (I've been doing it this way for at least 12 years), but also because MS Word is so poor and clumsy for this sort of thing that it wastes more time trying to make it work in Word than it takes me to write, create, print and mail the letters in other formats. Labels in Word are a real headache.
I could create the labels in Corel Draw, too, but Corel's label feature has some quirks that annoy me. Avery-Dennison's program is fast and easy and I the label file is smaller than what Corel saves. It's for making one thing only: labels, and it has every Avery label pre-programmed into it as a template.
Corel will save the print-merge template but if you want to save the data with it, you need to merge everything into a new file. Which means if you have, say, 100 people to write to, it saves 100 pages, each one customized for the recipient. And if you only save the template, you have to do the print-merge anew every time you want to print anything from it. Otherwise all it shows is the field tags.
Also, Corel offers oodles of label templates, including most Avery labels (although not their CD/DVD labels, unfortunately). These print properly, with multiple copies on a page like labels should. But when you merge to file, each label gets its own page, so it's a bit clumsy to find anything specific in the file.
SO what I've had to do is to re-install my old version of Excel 2003 to get back a feature I find really useful. The change in excel has convinced me NOT to migrate to Office 2010 or later versions until this flaw is rectified, but instead to turn to Open Office instead. It's free, too!
Geeks, artists and game players usually turn indexing OFF because it's so resource-hungry (it kills frame rates in FPS games). So first you have to turn it on, go through the tedious process of making the directory serachable, then telling Windows to include it, then waiting for the program to get around to it.
Corel should have thought about this and set a default template directory. Unless you index, you will see nada in the template list and even if you save a file as a template, it won't show up - giving you the annoying message "you must save a file as a template first" every time you try. I discovered this Pythonesque nonsense after saving a template a dozen times in a dozen locations, mostly with other pre-installed templates, but could not locate a single one of them.
Winner of the bad user interface award? A least a good runner-up.