More Compatible Formats

This chapter focuses on working with Office, but Access can also talk to non-Office applications. Access can import or link to all of the following formats:

• Any Access database files ( .mdb , .adp , .mdw , .mda , .mde )

• Excel spreadsheet files ( .xls )

• dBASE III, dBASE IV, and dBASE 5 database files ( .dbf )

• Paradox 3.x, 4.x, 5.x, 7.x, and 8.x database files ( .db )

• Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet files ( .wk* , .wj* )

• Delimited text files

• Fixed-width text files

• Exchange and Outlook files

• HTML files ( .html , .htm )

• ODBC database files

• XML documents ( *.xml , *.xsd )

• Windows SharePoint Services

• Microsoft Active Server Pages ( .asp )

The Absolute Minimum

In this chapter, you learned about some of the ways to use your Access data in conjunction with other applications:

• Access can quickly and easily share data with Excel and Word.

• Access can import Excel data into an Access table.

• Access can link to an Excel spreadsheet and interact with its data from inside Access.

• How to export Access data to text and how to import text data into Access.

• How to take advantage of Word's impressive formatting capabilities to format your Access data.

• That it's sometimes easier to merge Access data with a Word document than it is to format an Access report just the way you want it.