User manual

92 FileMaker Pro User’s Guide
When you convert files, FileMaker Pro 7 preserves your original
files and creates new, converted files in FileMaker
Pro 7 format. The
original files are not modified, and you can open them in the previous
version of FileMaker
Pro that created them. The converted files can
be opened only in FileMaker
Pro 7.
You can convert a single file or convert multiple files at once:
1 Use the single-file conversion method for stand-alone database
files that don’t display related data from other files. For more
information, see the next section.
1 Use the multiple-file conversion method to convert all the files in
a relational database. For more information, see “Converting
multiple files at once” on page 93.
Converting a single file
To convert and open a single file:
1. If the file you want to convert is currently open in the previous
version of FileMaker Pro, close the file.
If you attempt to convert a file that is currently open, an alert
message will appear indicating that the file is already in use, and the
file won’t convert.
2. Start FileMaker Pro 7.
3. Do one of the following:
1 If you see the Open New or Existing File dialog box, continue
with step 4.
1 If you see the New Database dialog box, select Open an existing
file
, and then click OK.
1 If you don’t see any dialog box, choose File menu > Open.
4. In the Open dialog box, select the file to convert, and then click
Open.
Note You can also begin conversion by dragging the file onto the
FileMaker Pro 7 application icon.
The Conversion dialog box appears, where you can choose to rename
the existing file prior to conversion. By default, FileMaker
Pro
renames the file by adding “Old” to the filename.
5. Do one of the following:
1 Skip renaming the old file by clearing the checkbox named
Rename old file and clicking OK. It’s not necessary to rename the old
file if it has an .fp5, .fp3, or .fmj extension because your converted
file will have an
.fp7 extension. On Windows, the filename
extension
.fp7 is added to all converted files.
1 Rename the old file by entering the name you want and clicking
OK. Do this if you’re using Mac OS, the file does not have an
extension, and you want to continue using the existing filename
for the converted file.
The Name Converted File dialog box appears.
6. Enter the filename that you want for the new file.
If you renamed the old file in step 5, the default filename for the
converted file is the original filename (with a .fp7 extension, if the
original file had an extension). If you did not rename the old file, the
default filename is
filename Converted.
7. Click Save to start the conversion.
During a prolonged conversion, the File Format Conversion dialog
box will appear and show the conversion progress. If a file being
converted contains indexed fields, you can save time by clicking
Skip
when the index is being re-created, which postpones indexing until
later.