How to connect to an MS Excel data source

[joeparrott7]

I have Crystal Reports 2020 64 bit loaded on my laptop. The laptop is running a 64 bit version of Windows 10 pro. I am running the 64 bit version of MS Office 365. When I try to connect to an Excel .xls file I get the following message:

"Failed to load database information. Details: No database connector has be specified" (see attached screenshot)

This has not been a problem with previous versions of CR that I've used.

[DellSC]

With newer versions of Crystal you have to configure an ODBC connection to Excel to get it to work as a data source because the JET engine that used to be available has been deprecated by MS. The Excel ODBC driver is part of the MS Access database engine which you can download from here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=13255. You'll need AccessDatabaseEnding_x64.exe.

-Dell

[former_member779699]

I added the AccessDatabaseEnding_x64.exe. I'm still not able to connect to an excel spreadsheet as a database file. Where can I find further documentation for this?

[DellSC]

After you installed the Access driver, did you create an ODBC connection that points to your Excel file in the ODBC Manager?

-Dell

[former_member779699]

When I try to 'create new connection' and I choose ODBC I see the excel ODBC, but it wants a user ID and password. That has never been required in the past. In older versions of Crystal I was always able to 'create new connection', then choose 'database files', then search for the file. In this case it would be an excel worksheet.

[DellSC]

Are you creating the ODBC connection in Crystal or in the ODBC administrator? Have you tried just leaving the user ID and password blank?

-Dell