Excel to AutoCAD

[homer]

Hello,

I work with AutoCAD 2007 and i have a little question... i hope that someone can help me...

I have an excel spreadsheet with information like coordinates, type of object (a blue light, a red light, some road sign (a stop,...)). is it possible to use this excel file as a database to export this to autocad. the only thing for me is that each type of object is on a different layer and appears as a point on AutoCAD: blue light => layer 1, red light =>layer 2,...

I know that AutoCAD is powerfull but can he do this easily????


thank you for your help,
Greetings,
Homer

[Strix]

we get asked this 2 or three times a week

did you read some of the existing threads?

put exel or excel into your search as it's spelled both ways on the threads

[SLW210]

Or scroll to the bottom of this thread to "Similar Threads".

[homer]

i have already searched on the forum the related threads with keywords "excel" and ".xls" and "database"... but the only thing i have found is to concatenate my coordinates thanks to the excel command A1&","&B1... (and it works) i didn't found something concerning the organization of the element of my database on the layer depending of their attributes...
Most of the threads are about the exportation of the spreadsheet itself to AutoCAD to have the table on the drawing...

so if you know a way to do this or the link of a thread that i didn't see...

thank you,
Greetings
Homer

[homer]

well, i have changed my excel file...

i have a column with the name if the object
objectname
then a column with the layername
-layer s layername (to make the layer layername active to draw the point on it)
and then a column with po xcoord,ycoord (to create a point with the coordinates

but the problem is that "space" is not similar to "enter" for the command "Enter layer name to make current or <select object>:"

i have -layer m layername but i should have "-layer m layername "enter" "enter" to quit the layer command and to create my point with "po"

is there is a way to do with without using enter because i copy-paste my table in autoCAD...
i don't know if i am clear... it's difficult to explain that...

thank you,
Homer

[Raggi_Thor]

If you make a new column in Excel you can make the content like

-LAYER MAKE LAYER1 COLOR 1

POINT 123,456

and so on.

Then you can paste this to the command line or save as script and run it.
There is a couple of extra Enters to quit the Layer command.
If you are sure the layer exist you can use Layer Set, but Make will always work. Setting the color for each layer could be done just once.

[homer]

The problem is that it seems to be impossible to organize a cell in this way with "enter" to go to the next line...

or there's an option in excel to do this...

[Strix]

Bookmarking for FAQ

looks like this is further info that needs adding to a more basic question

[homer]

well, i have found the solution for inserting line in a cell of an excel spreadsheet... maybe many of you know how to do that but you only have to use [ALT]+[ENTER].

It could be useful when you copy-paste an excel table in your command line.

Hope it will help some members who are not familiar at all with excel...

[Raggi_Thor]

In most commands in AutoCAD you can use space as enter, one space = one enter. In menumacros you can use ; as enter.