Project 1

Database to Desktop Publishing

An existing system had previously been written in FoxPro DOS to maintain a database of Government services. The database defined the different types of services, the locations of offices, and details about the contacts, phone numbers and other pertinent information.

The existing system had problems in design and required continuing support and maintenance to implement additional features, and to try to remove bugs in formatting, and problems with losing data.

The purpose of the system was to allow the collection of information by in a central shared database, and provide the ability to create printed directories. In order to print the directories and to provide a flexible system for formatting the output, the FoxPro program had to be able to export data from the database into a tag delimited file compatible with Corel Ventura desktop publisher.

The system was also designed to be bilingual, and was required to be allow the use of French accented characters. This feature created special demands, as the base system used the DOS French character set, the database itself used the Windows character set, and Ventura used a modified Windows character set that was backward compatible with the GEM operating system

Platform and Tools

MS/DOS, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Novell Netware, FoxPro/DOS, FoxPro for Windows, Basic, Ventura Publisher, Corel Draw.