Re: ODBC connection to mdb for MacIntosh

Hi Amy,

If you do a Google search in the excel macintosh newsgroup for Access you'll find a lot of information about why there's no Access for Macintosh. The short version is Microsoft does not think they would make a profit on the product, consequently they don't make it.

Fortunately Macintosh Office versions and Microsoft Access both support ODBC, so there is a way to create direct connections to the data tables. Word and Excel are better report generators than the built-in very clumsy report tools in Access. Excel generates better input forms than what can be made in MS Access, so as long as everyone has connectivity to the data tables the database world should go round smoothly.

-Jim

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP
MVP FAQ
<http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;mvpfaqs>


Amy Blankenship wrote:
OK, thanks. It's odd that with all the time MS has been making products for the Macintosh, they can't find any way to allow you to use an Access DB locally on a Mac. I'm sure I'm not the first person to want to do this, and FileMaker Pro stinks!

Thanks;

Amy

"Jim Gordon MVP" <goldkey74@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:%23COUK2lkFHA.1148@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hi,

Sorry to take so long to reply. Please keep in mind the MVPs are volunteers and don't work for Microsoft any more than you do.

ODBC is a somewhat complex topic, so you will need to experiment with it and study information about it. Maybe someday I'll have time to provide the world with a step-by-step procedure describing exactly what needs to be done, but today is not that day. Meanwhile all I can do is point you to various sites that have the information you need, albeit not as completely laid out as you might hope it would be.

All Microsoft Access databases will by necessity be on a server, since MS Access runs only in Windows. You need a network path to the .mdb file to connect with which means that permissions will need to be set so that your computer has direct file access to the .mdb.

A place to start learning about ODBC is "Introduction to ODBC" here
http://docs.openlinksw.com:80/st/introodbc.html#aboutodbc

An installation guide is here:
http://docs.openlinksw.com/st/installoverview.html

Openlink has a 30 day free trial, so go ahead and download the files to give them a try.

Here's a Mac ODBC Frequently Answered Question link
http://support.openlinksw.com/support/mac-faq.html

In addition to openlink you may find other ODBC vendors with information specific to their products.

-Jim

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP
MVP FAQ
<http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;mvpfaqs>


Amy Blankenship wrote:

I found this link, but I was unclear which of their products was supposed to allow you to connect to an access database that was resident on the Mac. There was one that looked like it would work if the DB was on a PC server, but that's not what I'm looking for.

Could you be more specific as to which product you're meaning?

Thanks;

Amy

"Jim Gordon MVP" <goldkey74@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:eVeSU1NjFHA.1968@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


Hi,

The first one that comes to my mind is OpenLink, but there are others:
http://www.openlinksw.com/

If you want to connect to Excel here are some details:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/excel2004/using.aspx?pid=usingexcel2004&type=howto&article=/mac/LIBRARY/how_to_articles/office2004/xl_ODBC.xml

-Jim

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP
MVP FAQ
<http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;mvpfaqs>


Amy Blankenship wrote:


I've seen tantalizing hints on Google that it might be possible to create an ODBC connection to an Access database on a Mac, but have not been able to find a good link to drivers that will make this work. Does anyone have more information on this?

TIA;

Amy 



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