have you tried using an earlier excel format, maybe 4 then working up from there and seeing where it crashes, as it might be a verion number problem. we have recently come accross some problems with a word 2003 mail merge that was working with 2k and xp.
Slán
~M

>Hi
>
>in VFP 6 and 8
>
>when I import from an excel spreadsheet
>
>IMPORT FROM "c:\testsystem\test.xls" TYPE XL8 SHEET "BG"
>
>it works
>
>when I add a database name to put the output in
>
>IMPORT FROM "c:\testsystem\test.xls" DATABASE "c:\data\data1" NAME "test" TYPE XL8 SHEET "BG"
>
>I get an error
>
>Microsoft Excel file format is invalid (Error 1661)
>
>any idea what I'm doing wrong.
>
>Thanks
>
>Nick Mason