>I am currently updating a system that accesses Sybase databases from Excel
using appropriate connection strings. For testing at home, I swap the
connection string to an Access one, and thus have Excel using SQL to
manipulate an Access database.

HA...I did nearly the same thing via Word <-> Sybase and then Access. I used
SQL Anywhere as a wrapper to access the Sybase DB. Never did that
before...never will again!<g>

It was a hassle to learn and thanks to Greg who put  in several hours helping
me figure it out and doing server tests. I actually did get it working well,
but the client had problems accessing the DB and getting the code  to work.
So he decided to use a daily data  merge of the one table from Sybase into
Access...which was also the way we were testing the process during
dev...prior to final implementation.

Again, all worked well on my end, but his was giving him headaches.

After weeks of hassle and troubleshooting between us...we discovered he had
Acrobat 7 installed and THAT @#$%@! addin was interfering with everything
and messing things up on his end!<grrrrr, grumble, curse> Once he removed
the Acrobat 7 Word Addin, everything worked great on his end. And, although
we never went back to test, I have a strong feeling that was the problem
with the Sybase/SQL Anywhere connection.

But that whole experience convinced me to no longer bother trying to work
with Office apps and anything outside of MS DB apps (Access, SQL, Excel).