[thelist] Db special characters (multilingual again)

Susan Wallace susanhw at webcastle.com
Fri Jan 18 11:16:56 CST 2002


Greetings!

Following up with a different slant on the multilingual database support 
topic, I need some suggestions for dealing with converting a database.

The original data was entered into FileMaker Pro (v.5) on a Mac, and needs 
to be imported to a MSFT SQL Server 7 database (NT4).

The records in this database contain extended characters for Publisher 
names, etc. No matter how it is saved out of File Maker, the special 
characters are lost. And as soon as the file is saved out of Filemaker, I 
had the person sending it check the file and the characters are not 
retained even at that step.

I do not have a Mac, or a current copy of Filemaker, so all I have done has 
been by talking to others on the phone asking them what options are 
available for exporting. The procedure has been for them to export the data 
to a text based file, and send it to me. I tried importing it into Access, 
I tried reading it from a raw text file, but every time the characters are 
lost. (And aren't even in the original file - all those lovely little boxes 
that indicate something is wrong)  I have verified that my database field 
is set to accept Unicode.

I have tried to find out what effect (if any) a Mac font would have had on 
the data being entered and if that played a part, could the font be changed 
in Filemaker to something universal (Arial unicode?) without having to 
re-enter all the names?

Having said that - I *do* realize that a "database" is essentially a big 
text file, but from what I read and was told by folks who use FMP, that 
program somehow retains formatting.

I looked through the company site for Filemaker, and did several google 
searches, but nothing touched on this issue.
Suggestions?

TIA!
Susan Wallace





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