Thanks for that

But I think I did not make myself clear

On average the file that I wish to send a client may contain 12 data records each with its embedded bmp image - the catch is that my clients do not run vfp - so how can I send the data to them in a form which is widely readable - if there were no images I would send CSV format - with images embedded what are my options - or am I forced to send data and image files as separate entities?

Zipping is taken for granted naturally

Thanks for your help

Colin

>>Dragan
>>
>>That's great and it works - presume the same for any other image format?
>>
>>Now the second part of the problem - now I have the image in my vfp table I want to transmit the table to my Clients so they can at their end extract data and images for whatever purpose thay need - don't ask me why as the explanation would take too long - but I have been asked to transmit as a single file rather than a data file and a separate image file
>>
>>Most dont use XML - if I transmit the file as HTML how do they extract the image - or is there some other way of transmitting the file to make it wasy for the recipient to extract the data and the image separately?
>
>Your best bet is to zip the dbf, fpt and cdx (I assume you have at least some index tag). The images are in the fpt, but you need the dbf to know their block numbers (what a memo field actually keeps in the dbf) and the cdx just needs to go together if you have it. So zip, send, have them unzip it and there you go. Depending on how eliterate they are, this may be easy or may require that you provide some plumbing for this transport - unzipping, proper pathing etc.
>
>IOW, while this is not hundreds of files, it's still two or three files, so if you need to send one file, zip it. Specially if it contains bmps, they will zip with a good ratio.