Question

 Can BarTender be used to source data from a DBF database file?

Answer

 BarTender can certainly connect to this type of database, but you'll need to use a General OLE DB provider and manually configure its connection. This is what you need to do:

1. When creating the new database connection select "OLE DB Connection" from the wizard.
   
2. As the provider select Microsoft Jet 4.0 OLE DB Provider (on 32 bit BarTender) or Microsoft Office 12.0 Access Database Engine OLE DB Provider (on 64 bit BarTender) and access the "Connection Setup" options.
   
3. Here comes the "tricky" part. It seems that when working with DBF files, the folder represents the database, and the individual DBF files represent the actual tables. This means that on the "Database file name" you need to write the path of the file, but avoid the actual file name.
   
   Going back to the "Connection Properties" dialog, access the "All" tab and specify the path to the DBF file for the "Data Source" value (you can also specify this path from the "Connection" tab, but you'll later need to delete the file name from the path under the "All" tab).
   

4. Then on the "Extended Properties" vale write dBASE III.
   
5. With the above configuration the connection should now be successful, and if you proceed through the database connection wizard you'll find that the file name is actually considered as a database table.

*For more details please access the following webpage:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa337084.aspx