Access 2013 - Dbase (.dbf) Table Import option

I need to be able to import read/write Dbase dbf tables - yes they are still around so why has the standard option that was in Access 2010 gone?

 

I have seen mention of ISAM, which is gobbledegook to me. So please a simple answer - what do I need to install or change and how do I do it?

Is Microsoft addressing their error?

OR are they simply ignoring this?

 

The last post on this thread was in March - it's now May 2013.

 

Come on Microsoft --- FIX IT !!!!!

 

I need the ability to import  dBASE files ...

 

The overwhelming majority of help on these forums is volunteer help which does not work for Microsoft.  Microsoft has some contractors working to answer questions but they are not able to view each thread. 

 

So, to answer the question, they have Deprecated dbf support.  And, while I know that is important to many, it is one of those cases where their research shows there isn't enough usage to commit resources to maintaining compatibility.  And that does cost money.  The MVP's at the MVP Summit two years ago were asking about various things as to why they were doing something in 2013 and not doing other things which we felt were important.  The answer was that their research showed...

 

So, I understand your frustration but it is not going to get put back in as an option unless they had hundreds of thousands of users saying they needed this, but in THEIR research.  I don't know how much support you can drum up but I would say the only chance would be to get a letter writing campaign going and even then it most likely wouldn't change anything.

 

Just being honest with you.

Well then ... it is what it is ... fortunate for Microsoft they are so big they no longer (like they ever did) have to address customer's actual real world needs.

Guess I'm gonna have to cough up a few more bucks for a *dbf to *xml conversion program.

Fortunately those are still (relative) cheap .... Microsoft hasn't yet bought up / stolen / deprecated all that code yet.

Have you tried creating an ODBC DSN to your dBASE data file?  On a clean install of 32-bit Office 2013 on Win8, I find that I still have the ability to create a dBASE DSN.  dBASE is just not natively supported any longer.  

 

This has been an issue on other platforms for several years now. There never was a 64-bit dBASE driver, thus as an example websites have been struggling try to continue to use the out date format.

 

dBASE was a standard for many years, but it is not any longer...I don't miss it, it was not perfect.

Hhhhmmm ... another case of Aristotle being wrong ...  Change in all things is *NOT* sweet.

Looks like the two simple options, not involving ODBC or other 3rd party solutions, for Access are :

Stick with Access 2010 which still has the direct import dbf option

Open the dbf files in Excel 2013 and save in Excel format which can be imported to Access 2013

This is really stupid of Microsoft.  If you create the database using dbf tables in Access 2010 you can then run the database (with dbf tables) in Access 2013. So it is wrong to say that Access 2013 doesn't support the dbf format.

Thank You!  

Yours was a/the very helpful response.

I'm (trying to) switch from MS Access 2003 to 2013 and am *NOT* at all happy nor impressed .....