Excel DBMS Link

[BenM]

Hey all,

I am having a few problems getting an excel file to open as a DBMS
Link

The steps I am following are

1. Create Excel File

2. Create a named area around the data containing the Lat longs and
any other information wanted visible in the MI table
3. Create a new DSN name based on the excel document
I am making a File data source as I want the file to sit on the server
and be able to be opened by anyone.

I have tried using both the Drive Do Microsoft Excel and the Microsoft
Excel Driver

4. Open DBMS table with the selected feilds using the linked table
option

The table opens, however displays "The table you have downloaded
cannot be edited, see the Map Info User Guide for more information".

5. The issue is that when i go to make the table mappable after
selecting XYCoordinats in Index box and the lat long columns for the
X and Y cooordinate I keep getting following error.


ODBC Error: ODBC RC= -1, ODBC SQLState = S0002, DBMS RC =-1305,DBMS
Msg=[Microsoft] [ODBC Excel Driver] The microsoft Jet database engine
could not find the object ' MAPINFO_MAPCATALOG' Make sure the object
exists and that you spell its name and the path name correctly

Then the error

The table you have chosen cannot be mapped, The be mappable, a table
must contain a spatial column, or at least two numeric columns

Any tips?

[Spencer Simpson]

Sorry, but you cannot map Excel data in this way.

Opening a mappable table through a DBMS connections require that the remote
database contain a table named MAPINFO_MAPCATALOG. You create this table
using the DBMS Catalog tool that appears in Tool Manager.

Unfortunately, this tool does not work (and probably cannot be made to work)
with connections to Excel spreadsheets.

However, not all is lost. You can open the Excel spreadsheet directly as a
table (File->Open... and select "Microsoft Excel" from the "file of Type:"
dropdown list). After it's open as a table, you can use Table->Create
Points to create points for the table (or make the table mappable, put it in
a map window as the editable layer, and use the Drawing toolbar to manually
associate more complicated objects with each row).

Don't expect to be able to update the X and Y columns in the spreadsheet if
you associate a different point with a row.


________________________________

Spencer

[Glen]

Ben

you can call Mapinfo from excel using marco's

Glen

[BenM]

Hey all,

Spencer, thanks for a the Ideas however the background is that we have
a list in excel with lat longs that regulary gets changed.
So it would be a pain to continually opening the excel file the normal
way.

For those who are interested, I did remembered the work around

Instead of linking to excel you make an intermediate Access Database
that imports the linked excel table based on a named range in the
spreadsheet.

Then you map the access database file as above.

Its a tad slow and when I work out how to put a primary key in the
database it should allow points etc to be made editable.

Cheers

Ben