Your first problem is to understand what type of access is available to the various applications you are wanting to work with. ODBC stands for Open Data Base Connectivity - it will generally only be usable with a database or a product that allows direct access to a database for manipulation.

OLE - or Object Link Embedding - is a mechanism for accessing objects within the target application from your application. But you need the documentation on the objects within the application you can access.

In short - research the product you want to manipulate. Find out what access methods it allows and THEN you KNOW what you need to use fomr your application. There is no choice between the various methods you mention, each has its own specific uses and functionalities. jdtoronto