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From: Peter S Galbraith
Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help
Subject: Re: Importing tab-delimited text files or connecting to ODBC
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 2006 13:25:29 -0500
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Original-To: Tim McNamara
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Comments: In-reply-to Tim McNamara message dated
"Fri, 17 Feb 2006 13:06:38 -0600."
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Archived-At:
Tim McNamara wrote:
> Maks Romih writes:
>
> > "Eric Pement" writes:
> >
> >> Maks Romih wrote:
> >>
> >> > [...] I want to have some tool to connect to or import from other
> >> > data sources, especially relational DBMS-es, excel, MS Access,
> >> > etc.
> >>
> >> I think the difficulty with your search being fulfilled is that you
> >> are hoping to have Emacs, which is GNU-founded "free software",
> >> find a way to import data structures created by proprietary,
> >> non-free software. I suggest that there could be a philosophical
> >> hesitation for some people in getting free software to support
> >> commercial, non-free software. I think we're lucky to get GNU Emacs
> >> available for WinNT!
> >
> > I'm exploring these possibilities exactly because I'm not satisfied
> > with "non-free software".
>
> I would recommend comparing what file types Emacs can import into the
> major modes of interest to you, and then seeing what the unfree
> applications can export. For example, there are many types of
> spreadsheet and database file formats that are cross-compatible. CSV,
> SYLK, etc. Many unfree applications do support file types that free
> software applications can read.
If you export the Excel data as CSV, then you can use csv-mode.el to
read them in Emacs. It's likely that table.el can import them too.
If you use Debian, install the package emacs-goodies-el to get both
those add-ons.
Peter