I need to export some MS Access tables to dbf so I can use some customized software. The other software requires a strict data structure for the dbf. What I did was import the structure from an existing dbf, add my data, and then export back to dbf.

Turns out that Access doesn't like to retain datatypes the same way that Visual FoxPro wants it. For instance, Access has a datatype called 'number' that has a field size 'double'. When I export a field like that to dbf and look at it wih VFP, it is a field of type 'number' with a width of 20 and a decimal of 5.

Does anyone have a magic solution to make sure that Access imports and exports while retaining the dbf table structure?

Instead of doing Imports and Exports from within Access why don't you set up a VFP Remote View into your Access database - utilizing ODBC?

If you do it in that manner, the View will have data types compatible with VFP.

Then once the Access table is Open, you can move data across to VFP data tables as needed.

Good Luck

You are assuming that I want to use VFP.

I want to do this from Access.

Any other suggestions?