I am on Mac OS X High Sierra. In addition to Word, I previously used OpenOffice for projects with others who didn’t have Pages or Word. I understand that LibreOffice has replaced OpenOffice.
I have been told that I can open an mdb document (Microsoft Access apparently) using LibreOffice Base – but I do not understand what this is:
Is this a different application from LibreOffice?
If so, does anyone know where I go to find it?
thanks
Base is a database tool, and an integrated component of LibreOffice. You can start it from Finder - Applications, from the LibreOffice core app, or from menu File - New … in any of the user apps.
Databases are structured collections of data. Typical uses include statistics and accounting, but there are many other uses. (E.g.: The engine inside this forum relies heavily on a database.)
As far as I know, you can’t open an Access database file using Base, but you can connect to it. That distinction may be elusive.
When you connect to a database, you can access data manipulation objects - tables, relationships and queries mainly - to extract or modify data.
When you connect to a database (be it an Access file, a spreadsheet, an external database or something else), a Base odb file is created to store connection info, queries and other items which Base can’t save into the connected database.
When you open a database file, you also have access to “presentation items”, like forms for data entry, reports and other items.
Hello
consider LibreOffice as a full suite of applications for various purposes consisting of several applications serving the respective purpose and these modules have separate names. There are
If you install LibreOffice on a Mac OS X, you get 'em all, within one single installation.
Hello,
Base is another module in the LibreOffice (and OpenOffice) package. Should be included when LibreOffice is installed.
Base is a front end to databases. It allows creation of a user interface to store/retrieve data. Within LO it also interfaces with other modules allowing Writer, for example, to access mailing information stored in a database and merged say into a form letter.
As I have no first hand information on a Mac, not certain on how to access an .mdb (MS Access) file there. Possibly through a connection using ODBC or JDBC but can’t help any more than that. Have done this on Windows and Linux though. It is only to connect to the tables within and not the forms or reports.
Base (through LO) does come with ability to create databases using either HSQLDB embedded or Firebird embedded. You can also connect to many other databases such as MySQL and PostgreSQL.
More information can be found in the documentation → LibreOffice Base Handbook