Article ID: 228537
Article Last Modified on 10/2/2002
APPLIES TO
- Microsoft Office 98 for Macintosh
This article was previously published under Q228537
SUMMARY
The Microsoft Office 98 FileMaker Pro Importer contains a readme file describing the system requirements for the importer and some known issues. This article contains the contents of the readme file.
MORE INFORMATION
MICROSOFT OFFICE 98-FILEMAKER PRO IMPORTER READ ME FILE
Version 1.0
(c) 1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
This document provides installation and other information about the
FileMaker¨ Pro Importer for Office 98. This software is provided 'as is'.
Please refer to the End User License Agreement for more information.
________________________________________________________________
CONTENTS
INSTALLING FILEMAKER TOOLS
Installation Instructions
File Locations
Minimum System Requirements
KNOWN ISSUES
TECHNICAL COMMENTS
________________________________________________________________
INSTALLING FILEMAKER TOOLS
Installation Instructions
-----------------------------
The Office 98-FileMaker Pro Setup is an archive file that is a compressed
installer application which has been encoded as a Binhex or MacBinary
document. To Install this product, download either the Office 98-FileMaker
Pro.hqx or the Office 98-FileMaker Pro.bin to your local hard drive. If you
use Microsoft Internet Explorer version 3.0 or greater to download the
file, it will automatically decompress the file. Otherwise, you can use a
third-party decompression utility, such as Stuffit Expanderª or
MindExpanderª.
After the archive file has been decompressed, the setup program will try to
install the files as noted below.
IMPORTANT
After running the setup program, to use the Excel FileMaker Import Tool the
following additional steps must be taken.
1. Launch Excel.
2. From the Tools Menu, select Add-Ins.
3. In the Add-ins dialog check the box next to the Excel FileMaker Pro
Import Item.
4. Click 'Ok'
Important: Users working with non-English versions of Microsoft Word and
Microsoft Excel may have to move the files manually to the locations
specified below.
File Locations
-----------------
Note that the exact location of the Microsoft Office folder can vary and is
determined when Microsoft Office 98 is installed.
Microsoft Excel Related Files
The following files and folders are installed for Microsoft Excel:
- Microsoft Office 98:Office:Excel Add-ins:Excel FileMaker Pro Importer
- Microsoft Office 98:Office:Excel Add-ins:Excel FileMaker Pro Scripts
- Get All Fields
- Import
- Find
- Open Database
- Microsoft Office 98:Readme:FileMaker Add-Ins Read Me
Microsoft Word Related Files
The following files and folders are installed for Microsoft Word:
- Microsoft Office 98:Office:Startup:Word:Word FileMaker Pro Import
- Microsoft Office 98:Office:Startup:Word:Word FileMaker Pro Scripts
- Get All Fields
- Import
- Find
- Open Database
- Microsoft Office 98:Readme:FileMaker Add-Ins Read Me
Minimum System Requirements
--------------------------------------
To install the Office 98-FileMaker Pro Importer, you need:
* A PowerPC based processor.
* Mac OS 7.5 or later with AppleScript installed.
* 1 MB of hard disk space for each add-in that you want to install.
* Microsoft Word and/or Microsoft Excel 98.
* FileMaker version 3.0 or 4.0
To use the Office 98-FileMaker Pro Importer, it is *recommended* that you
have:
* A PowerPC processor with a clock speed of at least 120 MHz.
* Mac OS 8.5 or later.
* An additional 1 MB of memory allocated to both Word and Excel.
Important: Version 8.5 of the system software introduces substantial
performance improvements to AppleScript, which is utilized by the add-ins.
Using Mac OS 8.5 will allow the add-ins to operate much faster, especially
when importing large amounts of data.
________________________________________________________________
KNOWN ISSUES
With this release of the Office 98-FileMaker Pro Importer there are several
known issues. Please refer to the enclosed End User License Agreement
(EULA) before using this beta software.
After performing a Mail Merge in Microsoft Word the data source can
normally be changed by selecting the edit button in the Mail Merge Helper
dialog. This functionality is not currently supported in the Office
98-FileMaker Pro Importer. To change the data source to another FileMaker
Pro database, choose Mail Merge from Filemaker... from the Tools menu.
This will change the data source without changing the main document.
On some machines, when importing a database into Excel that contains ten
records and ten fields may cause a single field deliminator to be dropped.
This results in the data being imported incorrectly.
In some situations, if the normal launch of FileMaker is interrupted the
Office 98-FileMaker Pro Importer may not be able to continue successfully.
An example of why the launch process might halt would be if two copies of
FileMaker with the same serial number are started up on different machines
on the network.
When importing a FileMaker database that contains text fields with very
large amounts of data, not all of the data may be correctly imported to
Excel.
If FileMaker is quit or crashes in the middle of returning data to Excel or
Word, unpredictable results may occur. Excel or Word may crash or return
inaccurate data.
If FileMaker is running but has a dialog box open, such as the "New
Database" dialog using the Importer may cause Word or Excel to crash.
When returning data from a database that contails repeating fields, if the
data set to be returned contains only a single record, the information
returned may be inaccurate.
________________________________________________________________
TECHNICAL COMMENTS
The Office 98-FileMaker Pro Importer were also designed to be a technology
demonstration of what can be done using AppleScriptª and Microsoft Visual
Basic for Applications. These two technologies together provide powerful
tools for creating integrated solutions. These two technologies are also
within the reach of a larger number of users than traditional programming
techniques. These tools show that it is possible to create a powerful
solution to a business need without having to use third party software.
The Office 98-FileMaker Pro Importer may suffer performance degradation
when used with very large database files. The inclusion of numerous fields
tends to have a greater effect on performance than would normally be
expected. Increasing the memory size of each application and the size of
the disk cache can sometimes improve performance. Importing less that 20
fields of data at one time can also improve performance. In some ways this
performance behavior is not entirely unexpected because of the design
approach used.
Additional query words: OFF98
Keywords: kbinfo KB228537
