The AS/400 & Microsoft Office Integration Handbook [Paperback]

Brian Singleton (Author), Colleen Garton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1998

This book takes a detailed look at how you can integrate applications in the Microsoft Office 97 product suite with data from your AS/400. Tasks that used to be nearly impossible are now made easy if you learn the integration secrets in this book - secrets such as how to use your AS/400's output with your PC data formatting tools and how to easily make professional-looking reports with AS/400 data. You'll also learn the secret of using visual query tools to create sophisticated information output; how to analyze and summarize the detailed and often cumbersome reports from your AS/400; and how to combine the presentation capabilities of Microsoft Office with the database capabilities of the AS/400 to provide your company with the best of both worlds. The first sections of the book introduce the essential knowledge you need to use Client Access as you integrate AS/400 data with the Microsoft Office applications. Author Brian Singleton explains how to install and configure Client Access, how to provide a seamless method of AS/400 integration with Microsoft Office using ODBC, the network drive functionality of Client Access, and the Client Access Data Transfer function. He also describes TCP/IP's FTP file transfer function and how to use it to bring data from the AS/400 to your PC. The remaining sections cover the veritable Swiss Army knife functions of Microsoft Office. For each of the office applications, there's a specific chapter devoted to showing how each function can be used with the AS/400 - from using Word to create mailing labels, form letters, and envelopes to downloading data into spreadsheets, producing sophisticated queries and data retrievals, and creating sophisticated reports, using Outlook as your AS/400. If you have PCs attached to your AS/400, this handbook has the essential information that will show you how to harness the power of Microsoft Office and exploit the AS/400 database

Product Details

• Paperback: 375 pages
• Publisher: MC Press; 1 edition (August 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1883884497
• ISBN-13: 978-1883884499
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,518,512 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars NOT for PC developers!, March 14, 2000

By 

Jeremy Kidd - See all my reviews

This review is from: The AS/400 & Microsoft Office Integration Handbook (Paperback)

When I stumbled across this book at Amazon, I thought it was an answer to my prayers. I am a VB/VBA programmer and I've been working with AS/400 data for a few months now. I am not an AS/400 person, so I've been bringing the data to my PC and manipulating it in Access and Excel.

It seemed like this book would provide good tips to make this process run more smoothly, but it has absolutely nothing in it that I don't already know...

This book is probably wonderful for AS/400 people who have limited PC experience, but for Windows developers with limited 400 experience, it is useless.

Dollar for page, it's also one of the most expensive computer books I've ever seen.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good step-by-step tutorials, August 28, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The AS/400 & Microsoft Office Integration Handbook (Paperback)

Lots of figures and step by step instructions made it easy for me to create easy reports from our AS/400 data. Saved tons of time!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars FOR THE BEGINNERS!!, August 7, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The AS/400 & Microsoft Office Integration Handbook (Paperback)

After searching through the limited amount of technical books that try to explain how to use/get AS400 data and manipulate it on the PC, I eventually found this book. After reading the summary and seeing the price (I assumed that the price would be a reflection of the book's quality) I decided to make the purchase. I bought the book under the assumption that it would explain the various ways to get AS400 data across to the PC then how to use the data that you have grabbed.
This book explains how to use the various tools provided by IBM to get AS400 data - it manages to do this in a very small amount of pages, however it basically repeats what IBM do in their product documentation. It then goes on for the next 150 pages of how to display & organise the data in MS Office - a user faimliar with Office would already know what it expains in the 150+ pages. The book only touches on a few alternative methods of getting AS400 data - FTP/Data Transfer/Net Neighbourhood.
In summary: If you are a VB/VBA programmer that wants to know how to get data from your 400 - don't buy this book. If you want to learn how to use Data Transfer & Operations Navigator - go to IBM. If you want to learn about displaying data in MS OFfice - go to MS Press. Oh, and don't buy this book. Period.