For those without ms access...

[Chappy]

...is there a recommended free program out there that allows the editing of mdb files?

[Tim Plum]

openoffice.org has a program that is a dbase like access

[Chappy]

I've installed openoffice, but not been able to open the dat file...

If anyone has done this, tips would be appreciated.

[Tim Plum]

change the file extension

[Chappy]

Thanks, Tim. That's what I had been trying to do, but I kept winding up with a file called pstats.dat.mdb. :)

But, I finally figured it out. I had to go into the folder properties and disable 'hide known file extensions'. Then it worked like a charm.

I noticed some columns show up blank (academic prestige, for example). Is this a limitation of open office or does it show up blank in access as well?

[slingblade73]

Can we change the abbreviations without screwing up the game?

[Chappy]

Well, you have to convert it back when you're done editing. :)

[Tim Plum]

some columns are blank because those are the "hidden" ratings the ones that help make the game not so predictable and easy to win.
slingblade which abbreviations? If you mean team names etc. then no, but I would certainly backup pstats before you alter it.

[slingblade73]

some columns are blank because those are the "hidden" ratings the ones that help make the game not so predictable and easy to win.
slingblade which abbreviations? If you mean team names etc. then no, but I would certainly backup pstats before you alter it.

For instance, Bama uses ALA not ALB.

[Chappy]

Yeah, you can change those... I thought you meant extensions...

Just be sure you don't wind up with any duplicate ones.

[[Icy]]

If you change the Abbreviations, the logos etc won't work as the logo file names are the team abbreviations. That is why i said that my real logo set only will work with my real database, else some logos won't load.

So if you change Bama from ALB to ALB, go to the logos folder and change the ala.jpg to alb.jpg and ala-t.jpg to alb-t.jpg for them to load. The same for any other abbreviation that you want to change.

Btw, in my real database i think Bama was corrected already to ALB.

[st.cronin]

change the file extension

Change it to what?

And which open office program should we use?

thanks for all your help

[Tim Plum]

http://www.openoffice.org/product/base.html

[st.cronin]

SQL Status: S1000

The connection to the external data source could not be established. An unknown error occurred. The driver is probably defective.

Any ideas?

[Tim Plum]

did you change the file extension to .mdb?

[st.cronin]

yep

copied it to desktop, renamed it

[Tim Plum]

open office may not read from the desktop, I don't try from the desktop so I only guess at this stage.

[st.cronin]

I copied it to desktop AFTER trying to open it from the GDS folder. Both tries got the same message.

[Tim Plum]

goto open office base program, when the wizard opens you want to connect to an existin g database, when you select that a pull-down will become active look for MS Access and click that then Next button then follow the directions

[kybucki]

I can't get this to work either - I'm new to this but am not getting anywhere with access or open office

[kybucki]

I got it working

[Huckleberry]

Is academic prestige really a hidden rating? Every school shows as yellow in that rating.

Rice and Stanford are also yellow. I edited Rice to 80 in that cell in my pstats.dat file and started a new league and they're still yellow.