Help with Mac to PC Database Transfer?

K

Kframe

New member
I know this isn't the best location for this question, but hopefully the higher-ups will allow it.

On my Mac (old and slow, gonna sell it) I've got a database of all my gun magazines up to mid-1998.
It's great, I can search by topic, by author, by specific magazine, by subject, by gun named in the article, by caliber named in the article, etc.
This is kinda what the bare Clarisworks version looks like:

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Field 1/Title: "Rebirth of a Masterpiece"
Field 2/Magazine: Am. Rifleman
Field 3/Subject: S&W, .38, M15, revolvers, handguns, collecting
Field 4/Month: Jan/Feb
Field 5/Year: 1995
Field 6/Author: Kieth Schmidt
Field 7/Page: 48[/quote]
I like this setup cause I may only remember an article was by a certain person, or it was on pg.48, or it was in the Am.Rflmn in 1995 or it was about the M15. So, if I type in any of those search terms I get all the articles that fit the criteria.
Well, this is a Clarisworks DB and I want to get it onto my Pentium II with MS Access.

So far I'm having problems. I have managed to get the text over onto the PC, but it's a long string of text with no fields or other DB info.
To manually sort all that text into the proper MSAccess areas would take as much time as retyping the whole thing.
I've got 600 articles in the Mac database, and really don't feel like doing it over. Besides, I don't have the time.

Any ideas? Thanks, -Kframe
 
You might check www.tucows.com and hunt around for conversion software.

Also, try an Alta Vista search....you may have to tweak your search terms

------------------
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes" RKBA!
 
We have to do this all the time. We have found the best vehicle is to zip up the text files on the Mac, ship the zip, and unzip on the PC. The zip appl takes care of the dirty work. Just be sure your Mac zip appl has a "PC file" option.
 
I've received "raw data" for input into a database before. The data arrives in ASCII delimited text, usually delimited by commas. Meaning each field is seperated by x number of commas. Looks like this:

Joe Schmoe,1400 Blank St.,,Cleveland,,,OH,,,,76543,,,,,Jane Doe,2 Maple St.,,Los Angeles,,,CA,,,,90210,,,,,

And on and on in one long string of text. The commas tell the computer which field the text belongs in. I know how to convert data to ASCII in MS Access but have never done it on a Mac.
 
Thanks for all the replies so far!
I'm getting tired and the brain is only running at about 33MHz, so I'm gonna pore over this all tomorrow.
I do recognize something Jack99 typed about the commas and ASCII.
On my Mac, in ClarisWorks, there is the option to save as ASCII, DGF, DIF and SYsomething, four letters.
Also, since I've got PC Exchange (the handicapped grandfather to PowerPC) I can save this to a 1.4MB DOS-format disk.

I saved all of the Claris variations to disk, then put disk into the PC and tried to open these with MSWord, and MSAccess. Nothing would open with Access.
Error messages either indicating improper database format, of cannot find specified file A:\Gundex.
Like I mentioned previously, I could open it in Word on the PC, but only as a strungout text file with the occassional box-icon where there ought to be letters or punctuation.

I'm hoping I don't have to purchase any software to accomplish this, as this is the last Mac-related thing I have to do and then I'm 100% a PC-guy.

I'm gonna go shutdown my CPU now, yawn, and when I reboot tomorrow I might be able to figure this out.

Again, thanks, and feel free to chip in some more if you've got more ideas! :) -Kframe
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Again, thanks, and feel free to chip in some more if you've got more ideas![/quote]

Don't do it!!!!!! Get a G3. If you absolutely must, run Virtual PC on it.

B
 
Kframe,

Don't sell out to the man! You are too smart to switch to Windoze. When OS X comes out this summer, you'll find yourself selling your PC for a G4.

--Mercator
 
actually if the platform agnostic rumor is true,
you maybe installing OS X on your Pentium hardware!

dZ
 
This is something simple that can be done in the EMACS text editor for Windows, Mac and UNIX. Simply open the file in the text editor and do a Meta-X for replace-regexp. Replace Field 1, Field 2, Field 3, etc. with: ","

Then, do a Meta-X for the last field and replace with: "<CR><LF>

Boom, your file is now converted to comma delimited by "," (quotes included) and can be imported into any database package. I personally use FileMaker Pro under Mac or MySQL under UNIX.

/Sciri/
 
Guys, I already have a PC.
So the advice about OS and G3 and G4, although probably sound advice, is not gonna happen.
I'm actually getting used to Win98.
Sure, it's not perfect, but trying to get software for a Mac is tougher.

Another question, is Filemaker the new form of ClarisWorks?
I searched goto.com for Claris and the only thing that came up was Filemaker.

Things are pretty busy at work, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to put more time into this until mid-week.
I'll let you all know how it turns out.
Thanks, -Kframe
 
Filemaker is ClarisWorks reborn, as far
as I know.
I just did the opposite- moved a data base from the PC TO Filemaker on MAC using comma-delimited records. I use the import type ASCII
I think (i don't have the mac anymore to check the actual selection)
You'll want to use the EXPORT ASCII
on the MAC and use an IMPORT feature in
the PC database that you use, selecting
the same format that you exported with.
If you use PC Filemaker, you may be able
to move the native database right over,
I don't know for sure.
 
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