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plotting - imported excel files to AutoCAD


SJGREY

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Importing excel files into AutoCAD drawings works nicely but the print is unreadable in some areas of the page. There seems to be no rhyme nor reason to how the plot will turn out. :?

 

Any feed back would be appreciated. :)

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I use the feature all the time and it works great for me.

 

A couple tips though..

 

-Only copy and paste the cell range you intend on showing up in the drawing. Before I copy and paste it in autocad, I always put thick border lines around the text I want to paste. The border lines will show up when you paste the cell range in autocad. This visually separates the table from everything else (like a normal autocad-produced table would). Of coarse, you might not want the border just depending on what you're trying to paste.

 

-When you insert the excel content you can specify the text size when pasting it (paste special). But I usually will just insert it first, get it in paperspace, and then scale it to a size that fits on the sheet and makes the text size respectable. If the pasted content is overlapping anything, whatever is overlapped will obviously not show up in the final plot so long as the pasted content from excel is on a plottable layer. After you paste the excel spreadsheet as an OLE object in autocad, you can still go back and resize it so that the text is a specific size. (1/8" for example). To do this, I usually select the table, right click, click "OLE", and click on "Text size".. Then you type in the size you want.

 

-Check your layering to make sure everything will come out plotted as intended. In other words, don't put the excel spreadsheet on a non-plottable layer or something. Whenver I get done inserting my excel tables, I always do a quick print preview to make sure everything will plot properly. If it won't, something is wrong.

 

-ChriS

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Another thing to consider that I didn't mention is text colors.

 

If you paste an excel spreadsheet in a drawing, the color of the text will always plot even if you have a monotone or black/white only CTB plot style applied to the drawing.

 

Always use black text in excel if you want your excel spreadsheet coming out black and white in autocad.

 

For example, If you have an excel spreadsheet with red numbering and a blue title, regardless of what CTB you could ever apply to the drawing, the text will always print in color (unless, of coarse, the plotter is configured to print in black and white regardless of what has color and what doesn't). Just something to consider.

 

-ChriS

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  • 1 year later...

For some time, I've easily been able to select a range of cells in Excel, copy, and paste into an AutoCAD dwg. For many projects, we have to print to .pdf. Suddenly, my spreadsheet content, even though it shows up fine in plot preview, is simply not showing up in the .pdf.

 

It may be more of a plotter setting issue, but I have not knowingly changed anything.

 

Has anyone seen this happen before? Or know what causes it / how to fix it?

 

Thanks.

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Strange. You are the second person who has reported this type of problem that I've read in the last 24 hours. The other person was using AutoCAD 2011.

 

I've used the Dynamic Link option of the Table command to incorporate Excel content within an AutoCAD drawing and I'm 6 for 6 when it comes to plotting successfully. Could it be the methods we use are different with regards to getting a speadsheet into AutoCAD. I know what your response is going to be. You're going to tell me you've never had this problem before. You know what? I believe you.

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I'm the other person with a similar problem :)

 

My problem is that if I print the file from 2007 it works great, but if I print from 2011 the Excel information doesn't show up at all. Its got to be some sort of setting, exactly which is the question....

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Would either of you be willing to post representative files (both dwg and xls) for one of us to experiment with? I would recommend for the sake of size and peace-of-mind that the dwg file contain only one or two objects and the xls file can only one column and row of data.

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I would post, but I see if I start a new drawing, and only use a few cells, it prints fine. Also, I just noticed that when plotting to pdf, sometimes the page orientation is wrong, even when it clearly shows correctly in preview. So, I get a cropped (wrong orientation) pdf with VISIBLE excel data - but if I manage to correct the orientation, the excel disappears again. I need a class in just figuring out all of the options, settings, changes to .pc3 files, etc. I end up with 100 different pc3 files (pdfa, pdfaa, pdfaaa - pdfaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, etc) and I never get why that happens either. I don't understand why in my plot popup "landscape" is selected, I get a portrait output in pdf. Does "landscape" mean the height and width will be rotated no matter what the ratio of height to width is? For instance - I enter a custom paper size 42" WIDE by 30" HIGH... if I say "landscape" will it leave that alone, or is it going to rotate it to 42" HIGH and 30" WIDE even though that is a "portait" ratio?

If I had enough to get hold of, I'd be pulling my hair out.

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Well, a quick update: I selected small "chunks" of my spreadsheet, pasted them in then aligned them so they appeared correctly. Then printed to PDF. This time, it worked. To me, that points to some sort of data limit - not on the clipboard, because the entire selection was copying & pasting just fine... but in AutoCad, as it apparently dumps data above a certain size.

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23 Columns, 142 rows. Doesn't seem like much in the scheme of things! There are varying borders, fills, and text colors if that makes any difference (?).

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I've read the posts in this thread, and it is still unclear, of course that could just be me, are you pasting these tables as ole objects or as autocad entities? I dont know about LT, but if you want the table to remain linked to excel, have you tried inserting it as a data link, or as autocad entities? I havent messed around with the data link, as typically we dont put tables that need to be updated in our drawings, or the ones that are are created/updated via a LISP routine, but if you are inserting as OLE, perhaps this would be a viable alternative.

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I had read that older versions of AutoCAD had a cutoff point for data but you are running LT 2010 so I would not expect that to be a factor.

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By way of clarification: I was simply selecting a range of cells in excel, copying to the clipboard, then pasting from the clipboard in AutoCad. I was not using any linking, and not converting to AutoCad entities. My whole beef here is that it used to work just fine, and now it does not. Also recall this is a problem when printing to .pdf. I cannot find anything in AutoCad help or Acrobat help that addresses this.

Up until several days ago, I was the "go-to" guy for doing these spreadsheet cell pdfs, because other folks here with AutoCad (full version or LT) were already experiencing the blank print syndrome. I wish I knew what I did to put me over in their camp.

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Up for an experiment?

 

Try doing it using a Dynamic Link to the Excel file. Do this with a copy of the current drawing. You can specify a range of cells.

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This also doesn't work. Perhaps an unrelated issue (aka operator error). If I try to insert an OLE object, and choose the spreadsheet file, I just get a box with an excel logo in it with the file name. Dead end as far as I can tell.

If I create a data link, then I can't find a way to make that range of cells appear in the drawing. Obviously, I am a novice at the OLE portion of AutoCad.

 

UPDATE: I copied the range of cells from my spreadsheet, Pasted special as 'paste link' - Microsoft Office Excel Worksheet, and the cells came in visibly. I tried a couple of changes over in excel to make sure the link was working, and it was. Printed to pdf, and got the same blank area, even though the cells showed up fine in print preview.

Edited by cwize
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You may have to change a setting in the Options / Plot and Publish dialog. Try toggling the "Use OLE application when plotting OLE objects", it may work better with it on, but then again it may not. So try either way.

 

And BTW, what driver are you using to make PDFs? I'd not advise the built-in DWG 2 PDF which comes with ACad. Even in my Vanilla 2011 / ACA 2011 it still gives problems. I prefer one of the virtual printers installed into windows (my choice is PDFCreator, but there are others which work comparably).

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