Subject Re: Changing from Filemaker to dBase Classic From Mervyn Bick <invalid@invalid.invalid> Date Sat, 21 Feb 2015 09:51:57 +0200 Newsgroups dbase.getting-started On Sat, 21 Feb 2015 02:29:40 +0200, Doug Cummings <DougCummings@telus.net> wrote: > I all ready have a copy of dBase Classic. When I bought it I do not   > remember them saying about needing whatever this emulation software is. dBASE Classic is a pre-Windows program that requires MS_DOS as the operating system on the computer.  Windows versions up Windows XP had the ability to open a DOS window in which one could run DOS programs such as dBASE Classic. > I have no idea what they mean by Emulation or emulation software. My   > objective is to get things working. The time it would take to do by hand   > what I would have to do if I stay with Filemaker would mean typing in   > about a half million words in a new field, each entry being no more than   > a dozen letters, so I had something to sort by. Obviously that is   > totally impractical. Windows versions from Vista onwards don't have the ability to open a DOS window and so they can't run programs such as dBASE Classic unless one installs a third-party program such as dbDOS.  This sits on top of Windows and emulates MD-DOS so that programs that require MS-DOS DOS can run. I've never used Filemaker so I have no first-hand knowledge but the message from Otto suggests that Filemaker can actually export data to .dbf files.   This may, however, be dependent on the version of Filemaker that you are using.   At the very least though Filemaker should be able to create .CSV files.  These are plain text files with the data from each field in a record separated by commas.  To import them into dBASE you would first need to create a .ddf file with the appropriate fields.  If you have many tables this could be time consuming.  :-( Mervyn.