Have you tried using the "Record New Macro" under Tools / Macro.

From there, start a new macro with simple name just for reference. Then go through steps you just described to open the text file in fixed format, etc. When done, STOP the recorder.

Then, under Tools / Macros / Macros, it will bring up the list of macros (including the one you just sample created). You can then view what EXCEL did internally via its methods / functions, etc, but it will be in VB script format... You'll have to do some conversion to accommodate with VFP, but works well. Same approach can be applied doing things in Word too...