I am not an avid FM user, although I have created a nice DB that I would like to share with other professionals in my trade. Most likely none of these end users will have any type of FIleMaker app so is there some sort or free version or third party app ala stuff-it or win-zip that will allow others to take advantage of my DB?

You could get Filemaker Developer, which allows you to make a runtime application out of your database. You can distribute this application to anyone and they can use it without having filemaker. The runtimes cannot, however, connect to or host shared databases.

or... you can use IWP for instant web sharing...

One thing to keep in mind when you create a runtime is the HUGE increase in file size. As a test, I just created a runtime version of a FM7 solution that is 520K. The runtime version of that single file is 43.8M.

You could suggest to your potential users that they download the trial version of FM7 and then buy it if they like your solution.

HTH, Mike

The other thing I forgot to mention, is that runtimes are specific to either a Mac or PC. They are not cross platform. To create a runtime that works on a Mac, you must create it on a Mac. To create a runtime that runs on a PC, you must create the runtime on a PC. You may be able to use Virtual PC on your Mac to create a PC version, but I have not tried that.

Mike

You can pare down the size of runtimes by removing language files that are not supported in your solution. You can zip or sit it before you distribute it as well.... I got mine down to about 10MB.