Hibuscus,
From one old fogy to another…
The answer is Yes. LibreOffice Base can do what you are doing with Works. I started with Tandy BASIC, on to PC versions of dBASE and into MS Access, and so on. I currently use Base to keep track of all my favorite recipes. I have learned to use Base to double or halve a recipe, print a grocery list for selected recipes, and even merge with Writer to compile an entire cookbook of all recipes. I believe Base is a very capable data tool for customizable personal use. Who knows? You might be able to improve your old Works database!
LibreOffice Base has just completed a migration to the Firebird database model. It was using the HSQLDB model. I would suggest that if you are just starting, try to use Firebird with Base. It seems to work well in the 6.4+ releases. There are still a few nit-noid issues, but there are fixes in the pipeline and work-arounds and other help to be found here.
As far as importing goes, I don’t know of any connector from Base to Works. However, if you can export or save your Works table data to an XLS spreadsheet, you should be able to define and import data from the spreadsheet to Base. This always works better for me than the old comma separated value (CSV) that we used to have to use.
Creating data entry forms and reports is fairly similar to the old Works and I think you would be able to understand most of process. There are many on-line resources for help and videos that demonstrate how to do what you want. I got started watching a lot of LO videos on YouTube.
Have fun with it.
echo8hink
