Gustav Brock
gustav at cactus.dk
Thu Jul 10 08:31:13 CDT 2003
Hi Charles and Haydn That _could_ be an idea ... If you view my recent message XML: SysOnyx LTE (xmlLinguist Translation Engine) I request some info on the map file. I found that here: http://www.vbxml.com/xmllinguist/download.asp Look for xmlLinguist Help File: http://www.vbxml.com/xmllinguist/xmlLinguist_help.zip This tells me that you could for every import file format create a map file, then convert the files to xml files with a single common format which you could import in Access. I'm not affiliated with SysOnyx in any way but the xmlLinguist looks like a nice tool which could prove cost effective when the alternative is to create (and maintain!) hand coded long and boring import routines. /gustav > If all the books are in electronic format, then why not have them all > converted into XML? --- > Well that's a hard one because you can't cunt on the supplier following > any standard of yours. So I think you're stuck with a custom import > routine for each catalog. > If this is an ongoing project with new catalogs being added from time to > time, I'd set up a table to store a description of each supplier's > catalog and how their fields correspond to yours. Then I'd make a form > to maintain that table so that you could hand the job of to a clerk who > could define and import the new catalogs as required. > Rocky >> The books are all in electronic format. From .dat files to >> formated/multi-sheet .xls files and everything in between. Some have >> only the required fields (code, desc, uom, trade, cost), others have >> extra columns like category, brand, retail, etc. Although the fields >> may be common the order of the fields is not >> >> Kind regards >> Hadyn