For the last 20 years, Office customers relied on Microsoft Access to support critical business processes. Starting today, Microsoft returns dBase file support to Access. Microsoft removed dBase support with Access 2013, but based on an overwhelming amount of feedback from Access UserVoice, it’s back.
dBase file support (.dbf)
As with all of its Office 365 services, Microsoft encourages all of its customers to provide their feedback through UserVoice and thanks them for their feedback on Access.
“We want to thank those of you who took the time to submit and review the UserVoice suggestions. We regularly review your suggestions and requests, as it’s one of the key touchpoints we have with our millions of users. One of the leading requests for Access was to see renewed support for dBASE (.dbf), and quite a few of you—particularly those in the Geographic Information System (GIS) community—made a compelling case to do so.”
In June 2016, Microsoft responded to the request to support dBase files in an Access Uservoice forum post, saying “dBase support is on our radar and is on our planned roadmap :-).” With this new feature, you can now import and link to data stored in dBase databases in Access.
At this time, dBase file support in Access 2016 is only available to Office 365 subscribers. Office insider users will get this feature first, followed by personal and commercial Office 365 subscribers. Microsoft encourages customers to continue to provide their feedback, comments, and suggestions through Access UserVoice.
