Howto connect OpenOffice to MS SQL server

Just had to connect to a MS SQL server that holds collected SAR statistics from our production servers.

Until now I used Toad in a virtual XP machine, but there has to be some way to connect in a graphical way from Linux too. And indeed there is!

Tools needed:

• OpenOffice Base
• JTDS connector from http://jtds.sourceforge.net/
• or Microsoft's JDBC driver: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/aa937724.aspx

I chose JTDS, got the JAR file and copied it somehwere in the classpath. On OpenSUSE that is /usr/share/java. You can also add it in OpenOffice directly: Extras -> Options -> Java -> Classpath

Then fire up OpenOffice Base, and in the database wizard

1. Open existing Database
2. JDBC

jdbc:jtds:sqlserver://hostname:portnumber/databasename

The port number usually is 1433. The JDBC driver class is

net.sourceforge.jtds.jdbc.Driver

Then enter the db username, in the next step enter the password, and connect.

That's it.