Stuart

VFP has several ways to import data from Excel. I would suggest:

1) Check out the Import command which can directly read XLS files, to a certain degree at least.
2) You can write a DDE application which you could use to retrieve any data from any cell on any sheet. More complicated for sure but can be done.
3) You can create an Excel object in your VFP app and execute various Excel commands directly to retrieve the data required. Check out the CreateObject command.
4) Can you dump the XLS data to a intermiedate format, eg txt, using Excel itself and then import that into VFP, or is this an on-going import requirement?

Access I havent used so no suggestions there.