>>>Hi
>>>I am trying to copy data from an excel spreadsheet to a DBF table. The excel has (simplied) three columns:
>>>
>>>

>>>Column 1                                Column 2        Column 3
>>>21 Main Street, Atp  12          John Smith      Boston, MA 02022
>>>

>>>
>>>If I save this excel to CSV command delimted then I have tough time to append from the CSV into a DBF since the comma withint each column "breaks" things. If I save this excel as tab delimited then more than one column goes into the DBF field. How would you suggeste I save as this spreadsheet and append into a dbf?
>>
>>Delimited by tabs.
>
>I tried that. But when I then append from this - tab delimited - file, more than one column goes to the DBF field. Do you have to create the DBF with fields that match the length of the column in spreadsheet exactly?

Nope, just the number of columns. But there's a clause in the append command, "delimited with tab" I think - check the help. I haven't used it in ages, because the sheets I get to import are never in the format pliable to export/import via a text file, because of line breaks in the cells (which will screw your import even if everything else is ship shape), date format issues across countries (you never really know what each edition of excel will do with them on any particular machine), so I've found that speed be damned, I better do automation.