Microsoft Access on a Mac

September 28, 2005 1:31 PM

Is there any program that runs natively on OS X that would allow me to work with a Microsoft Access database? Or am I doomed to run SoftPC?

Specifically, I need to be able write queries to an already-existing, and quite large, Access database. Transferring to another database program like MySQL is not an option.

posted by lesingesavant to computers & internet (5 answers total)

I couldn't find a better way and use Virtual PC and Access to do this. It'd be great to find out that there's a better way.
posted by jdl at 3:20 PM on September 28, 2005

It should be possible if you don't care about going through the Access front end. Access supports ODBC connections that allow you to use pretty much any database front end. I'm not a mac user, but I have to assume there are some ODBC clients for mac.

A quick google search turned up this link:
http://www.macsos.com.au/MacODBC/
posted by gus at 3:28 PM on September 28, 2005

I can't remember but doesn't Neo Office include an Access-y application?
posted by moxyberry at 3:48 PM on September 28, 2005

Looks like there are some open source, pure Java JDBC Drivers that can handle MS Access files. Also, Googling suggests that (again, from Java) you can use an RmiJdbc driver and setup an ODBC source on a Windows machine.
posted by sbutler at 3:51 PM on September 28, 2005

I don't know how new this is, but I just found it: OpenOffice's BASE, which says it natively supports Access DBs.
posted by librarina at 2:11 PM on September 30, 2005