Im confused. I really want Libreoffice to replace my old database, but its really quite difficult to import data. There seems to be no clear cut way to do it. Which begs the question, how much of a database is it? I have a Calc file which I have had some diffuculty formatting in a file type the LO Base seems to like. I have about 140 records in it. Not a huge file. Im using to figure out the program. But Base keeps freezing when I copy the data onto the table as instructed.
Base is NOT a database. It is a tool to work with databases, i.e. make databases accessible to this office suite.
You can connect a Base document to any JDBC or ODBC database just like you can connect an MS Access document to arbitrary databases via JDBC and ODBC.
Most Base documents are connected to spreadsheets because people love to dump data into calculators and then look at it as a database. This connection to a pseudo-database is mostly used for mail merge and label printing.
As a special use case you can generate a HSQL database or a Firebird database from scratch and embedded in the Base document. Such embedded “Base databases” are single-user desktop databases.
The actual type of your database is always indicated in the status bar of your Base document window.
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Quick approach: You create a new database and on the first page use the third option “connect to existing database” and select Spreadsheet(?) as type (my locale shows Tabellendokument). Then select your existing Spreadsheet-file.
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Goodness, that actually worked. Thank you
Difficult to answer, this is…
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I give it back to you: Is Calc a spreadsheet?
I’d say no - Calc is a program capable of handling spreadsheets. A .odc-File contains information of one or multiple spreadsheets.
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Even more complicated with Base. It is a program to handle or work with databases. But there are several types.
As part of Base you also get two other database-programs, one to handle database-files in hsql-db-format, one two handle firebird-format. The data for this “embedded” databases is actually stored inside the .odb-file.
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But Base can also connect to other database-programs like Access, MySQL, Postgres either running on your computer or elsewhere remote/in the cloud. Then your .odb file contains forms, some queries and the information how to connect to the data. To make it more complicated you can also have your own HSQLDB or Firebird program running externally and connect to them instead of the mentioned “embedded” approach.
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If your database-format is dBase it will be handled directly by Base, but Data stays in other folders - same for Text tables/.csv-files.
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Calc-Tables cab be used as datasource, but are usually read-only for base as they don’t provide a primary key.
So you have to make up your own answer to the question, if Base IS a database.
Thank you Wanderer,
Im afraid you are proposing possiblities and I am simply trying to get this to work. If it doesn’t quack and it doesn’t waddle, its not a duck. I have simply followed the directions ( several sets of them now ) and no process works for getting a database file data (.ods) into a base table. It doesn’t work. I don’t know what this program is but it is not a database.
Sorry , but you didn’t ask for help.
You did neither describe what you done exactly nor upload something we can check out.
So we come to:
Your Base is no database, because it don’t works for you.
My Base is a database, because it works with HSQLDB-embedded, SQlite, dbase and csv-Files as well as some spreadsheets.
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I can only recommend to check the handbook for base …
I seem to be happily swimming along but actually, its very deep here and my feet don’t touch the bottom. Your legs are very long and this experience is entirely different for you, as you are not swimming. Youre standing. I concede the point, if I may mix metaphors. I will now, however, call this a database because of what you told me. In doing that I’m probably not right but as scientists say “That’s not even wrong,” as my reasons for calling it that do not conform to its true definition. I am merely picking up something I found on the edge of the ocean of what is digital and using it to prop up my house.