Connecting to an external mysql database

[dhstein]

This question probably belongs more in the excel forum, but I have a feeling
that the Access gurus will be better able to answer it. I want to bring in
some data from a mysql database into an excel spreadsheet. Excel provides
the Microsoft query facility to actually create a query and one option would
be to use that. Alternatively. I might use Access and do the query that way
and export the file to excel. Either way, my first hurdle is to figure out
the ODBC connection string that I need to get this started. Can anyone
suggest some guidelines/directions/methodologies to get started? Thanks for
any help with this.

 

[Larry Linson]

I'm not an expert either on MySQL nor Excel, but, if I recall correctly, you
will need the MyODBC driver software installed on your machine. Using your
favorite search engine, you should be able to find a source for MyODBC, and
that should include, or lead you to, information on the Connect String (if
no one here has a sample for you). In Access, you would link to the MySQL
tables as external data source, using the MyODBC, and then treat them just
as you would any local or other-source linked tables. I'm not familiar with
using Microsoft Query with Excel, but perhaps someone else can offer
suggestions in that area. I know that you can, from VBA code in Excel, use
DAO, and that would be an alternative to Microsoft Query.

Larry Linson
Microsoft Office Access MVP

 

[dhstein]

Thanks Larry,

That's a good start for me. I'm hoping that others will share their
knowledge and experience with this to add more information.

David

 

[dhstein]

Chris,

Thanks for the detailed answer. I'll have to wait until the access to the
database gets set up to try it, but it looks like this is the way for me to
proceed.

David