Re-read what I wrote. I didn't dispute your "last 10 years" statement. And I also didn't suggest that IMPORT, et. al., need to be updated (and certainly not with some of the formats you - not seriously - suggested). I was just saying that IMPORT has worked well for quite awhile and continues to work well with the most commonly used (or so it would seem) format, which is XLS. And when you tell someone they've been ignoring "marketing materials" for 10 years, it does seem like you're looking down your nose at them. I'm glad to hear you weren't. One minute you seem to be implying how behind the times a person is and now you're saying you've used the commands in commercial products. I was just trying to point out that though these commands may indeed be close to death with the advent of a new Excel file format, they have worked well for many, many developers in multitudes of applications. Frankly, those who have said in this thread that they've never used them have taken things a bit far, IMHO. It's great they used another technique that works for them, but to imply others should not use these commands, either, is not justified. If they say "going forward with the new file formats, you'll have no choice but to use other techniques", then how could anyone disagree? But that's a different issue.

>Re-read what I wrote.
>
>NO Microsoft products released in the last 10 years have implemented hard-coded reading of external file formats. That's what ODBC is for, and OLE-DB.
>
>Look at the wild abandon shown in adding new file formats to either IMPORT or APPEND FROM. They're just knocking down our door with enhancements, eh? Where is .MDB? For that matter, since we're talking about Office formats in this thread, where are .DOC or .PPT? How about .INF or .LNK?
>
>At some point, you have to smell the roses. Is it documented that they do not intend to enhance these commands? Nope. What is CLEARLY documented is the file formats supported by these commands, and that list has been growing whiskers for years.
>
>>so don't look down your nose at people who still use them.
>
>I don't look down my nose at anyone, and I resent your suggesting that I do. I've used both commands myself in commercial products. Not recently, but it has been known to happen.
>
>Dan