a third party who does not have FPW and wants to do some data checking. He is happy with the new .txt file.
From what you say, your end result is not an Excel file at all. You seem to be using Excel to merely convert your DBF data to a TXT file format.
For safer route to do this and not miss records, etc., you might consider avoiding Excel all together.
By using Low Level utilities (FCREATE, FPUTS, FCLOSE, etc...) , you can directly create your own text file and not run into these limitations.
It is obviously more code work to create a low level write utility, but it works well.
Good Luck,
JRB-Bldr
VisionQuest Consulting
Business Analyst & CIO Consulting Services
CIOServices@yahoo.com