Importing MS Office 97 Access file but can't edit

[dcarlson12]

Using OpenOffice Base 4.1.13, I 'successfully' imported several Office 97 data bases.
However when I open them I can't edit or add field entries. The toolbar icons are greyed out when viewed in 'Table Data View'.
Help!
Thanks,
Dwight
PS I tried to attach a screen print which was inserted into a .doc file but it said it was too large. ??????

[Hagar Delest]

Hi and welcome to the forum!

PS I tried to attach a screen print which was inserted into a .doc file but it said it was too large. ??????

Indeed. Attachment are limited to 128KiB.
Paste your screenshot in a picture manager, crop it to the useful area and save it as .png or .jpg.

[UnklDonald418]

Look along the bottom of the main Base window, for the type of connection you have.
If it displays "Microsoft Access" then have have not imported anything, you have simply connected to the Access database. In that case the Base connection is read only and the data can only be modified by MS Access.

To be able to edit the data you will need to Create a new database and copy the Tables from the Access connection to the new Base database.
This must be done one table at a time. Cut and Paste (drag and drop will also work) to open a Copy Table dialog.

If it reports errors while importing the data it is usually due to data fields containing more than 50 characters (the default length of character strings in the Base Copy Table wizard. Try again but on the 3rd page of the wizard increase the length of fields of the VARCHAR type.
When it asks if you want to create a Primary Key answer Yes. You can't edit data in a table without a Primary Key.

Once you have copied a table, right click on it and select Edit. Select the field named ID and in the lower pane of the Table Design dialog change Auto Value to Yes.

While you can use the Table data view for data entry and editing, it is usually better to create a Form where you have many more formatting options than the Table data view

[dcarlson12]

Thanks for the helpful reply. It worked great. One thing that happened is that the columns were realigned/ordered in alphabetical order moving from left to right. Is there a way to put the columns back in the original order? i.e. not alphabetical?

[UnklDonald418]

I'm not sure why it would change the order of the columns but if you Use the Wizard to create a Form you can change the order that they appear on the screen and if you add a Table control ( a Data Sheet in the Wizard) you can Edit the Form and resize the columns and drag them into any order. You can also change character sizes, colors and fonts. You can also hide columns, like the "ID" that the user can't control anyway.