Help!

[McDonough Museum]

I being a computer moron am hoping for a bit of assistance. We use FileMaker PRO 4.0 for our mailing list. The layout and list was set up by someone who is no longer here. All I had to do to export the list on to a disk for our mailing services was press a button that was created within the main screen. This would export the data in a way our mail room could use to print them onto our mailings. Now for some reason when I use this button it exports into an EXCEL format that they cannot use. The person at the mail room said it used to save as an ASKE/ASKI? file. I tried to export as a *DBF which he thought would work for them. However when I exported the records they would not fit on a regular disk so I had to save it to a zip disk. This will not work for our mail room either. Any suggestions?? I appreciate any help that can be given. Thanks!

[markpro]

Glad to see there are others as illiterate as eye am!

[Moon]

Your mailroom is referring to an ASCI file, which FileMaker creates when you export as a simple text file. Assuming nothing else is goofed up with the script that is run when you click the button, exporting as text should work fine. Alternately, export as a Merge file, which also is an ASCI file, but with the advantage of generating a header with the field names in the same sequence as the data. (This is helpful when you want to know what data is what in the otherwise obscure text document.) Try exporting as text first and see how the mail folks like it. Text files are very compact and you should be able to get the file on a floppy with no problem.

[Kurt Knippel]

quote:

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Originally posted by McDonough Museum:

I being a computer moron am hoping for a bit of assistance. We use FileMaker PRO 4.0 for our mailing list. The layout and list was set up by someone who is no longer here. All I had to do to export the list on to a disk for our mailing services was press a button that was created within the main screen. This would export the data in a way our mail room could use to print them onto our mailings. Now for some reason when I use this button it exports into an EXCEL format that they cannot use. The person at the mail room said it used to save as an ASKE/ASKI? file. I tried to export as a *DBF which he thought would work for them. However when I exported the records they would not fit on a regular disk so I had to save it to a zip disk. This will not work for our mail room either. Any suggestions?? I appreciate any help that can be given. Thanks!

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Actually it is ASCII (sorry Moon) just a small nit, but significent.

Excel recognizes most text formats and in many cases will try to open them automatically. This is most likely what the issue is. The mailing house has installed a new version of Excel that automatically setup to recognize and open text files.

Tell them to open the application they use first, and then use the app to open the files.

So long as you have done nothing different to your Filemaker files, then this is most likely the issue.

[Moon]

quote:

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Originally posted by CaptKurt:

Actually it is ASCII (sorry Moon) just a small nit, but significent.

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Oops. Of course your are correct, Kurt. ASCII. I need to learn to spel better.

[McDonough Museum]

Thanks for the advice - we'll give both your suggestions a try, and see what works.