>>>>Hi,
>>>>
>>>>Is it possible to save/insert/embed an excel spreadsheet into a field of a VFP or SQL Server database? What kind of field would it have to be? TIA.
>>>
>>>Yes, it's possible. You can use blob / varbinary(max) field in SQL Server. If you're using SQL Server 2008 you can investigate FileStream option also.
>>>Finally, the simplest solution is to keep the Excel on the disk and just store the fullpath and name to it.
>>
>>Keeping the file on the disk is out of the question (for this customer). They currently use VFP and hopefully in the future will switch to SQL Server. So I would consider using blob for VFP and varbinary(max) for SQL Server. One concern I have is that it will probably make the table huge (depending on how many spreadsheets they will store). I would also have to give them ability to open this spreadsheet file from my VFP application via Excel automation. Many questions that I need to test. Thank you for your help.
>
>You may try first zipping the file. Also, you may want to store the files in the separate table on a separate file group and disk drive.

Zipping and unzipping would probably take too much time (for this case). But keeping this in a separate table could be applicable. Thank you.