What is a DBF file
The database management software dBASE used the DBF extension to save its standard database files. Due to the file format's popularity, dBASE is not the only database program that supports DBF files. Other "xBASE" applications support the file format as well. This popularity is based on the easy to comprehend structure and the fact that DBF was one of the earliest files of its type that was adapted by the database community.
The contents of a DBF file comprises of multiple sets data that are organized and stored in arrays. As a file format, DBF has been introduced in dBASE II. It has been used in the proceeding versions of dBASE III, III+ and IV. DBF files were one of the first database files with a header that allows programs that do not natively have knowledge of the data structure in a specific file, to read DBF files regardless. Thus, they can be opened in Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice Calc, and many other programs.
Here's a small, but not exhaustive list of programs that can open DBF documents:
- dBase
- Microsoft Access 2016
- Microsoft Excel 2016
- Microsoft Visual FoxPro
- Corel Quattro Pro X7
- Apache OpenOffice
- HiBase Group DBF Viewer 2000
- Astersoft DBF Manager
- DBF Viewer Plus
- DBFView
- Swiftpage Act!
- Alpha Software Alpha Anywhere
- Planamesa NeoOffice (Mac)
- GTK DBF Editor (Mac & Linux)
- multisoft FlagShip (Linux)
