User manual

Chapter 6
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Converting FileMaker databases from previous versions 105
5. Click Specify, choose the folder you created in step 2 where you
want to save the converted files, and click
OK (Windows) or Choose
(Mac OS).
Important Do not choose a folder that contains any of your original
files. If you do, then converted files may be renamed (by appending a
number to the filename) to prevent the converted files from replacing
the original files. This renaming of files could cause file references to
convert improperly, which affects relationships and other features that
rely on file references.
6. Click Open in the Open Multiple files dialog box 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.
FileMaker Pro 8 creates converted files in the folder you specified and
opens them, leaving your original files unchanged. On Windows, the
filename extension
.fp7 is added to all converted files. On Mac OS,
the
.fp7 extension is added to all converted files that previously had an
.fp3, .fp5, or .fmj extension.
If conversion doesn’t work or error messages appear, see “Solving
basic conversion problems” on page 106.
7. Using a text editor such as Notepad (Windows) or TextEdit
(Mac
OS) open the Conversion.log file located in the folder that
contains your converted database files.
The Conversion.log file contains a journal of the conversion process
that you just completed. Much of it contains status messages that
indicate the different file components that were converted. But it also
may contain error messages that indicate areas where you may need
to make manual corrections to the converted files before testing them
further. For more information about the Conversion.log file, see
“Reading the Conversion.log file” on page 105.
Note If you later need to convert the same files again, make sure you
convert the files into an empty folder; move or delete any files from
the previous conversion attempt, or create a new folder for the next
conversion. This prevents converted files from being renamed during
the next conversion which could cause file references to convert
improperly.
Reading the Conversion.log file
You should open and read the Conversion.log file after converting one
or multiple files. It lists the conversion status and possible problems
found during conversion, such as fields with invalid names.
The log file is created in the same folder as your converted files. If you
used the multi-file conversion method to convert more than one file at
a time, the Conversion.log file contains information for all the
converted files.