Excel and AutoCAD Sync LISP request

Hello all,

I curious to see if anyone knows of a LISP or can create a LISP so that you are able to sync an excel file (being used as the drawing index) so if you change the name of a sheet (i.e sheet 101 **Plan - Abutment**) it updates the excel sheet?

Please let me know if i need to explain further.

Thanks in advance!

I see what you are saying in that thread... but I don't think it's exactly what I am thinking of.... Please see the attched..

You can see my drawing index (created in excel and pasted into AutoCAD via DATALINK) and you see my title block...

Can all these be synced?

don't know if this will suite your need :

Update Title Block

IMHO - this is one of my greatest pet peeves.

Synchronising Excel and AutoCAD. It's a good concept but in all reality, trying to keep two documents created by two different programs up to date is a waste of time. I'm more for creating reports from data. Of course this needs to be formatted so the human reading it can understand it. It also seems redundant to edit AutoCAD drawings in Excel, and falling into the wrong hands (someone who has no idea what they are doing) can create quite a headache.

There are other ways to go about doing this. Creating a script file and lisp routine that extracts the title block information from all drawings and then builds a report or list with this information. You can go a step further and create a csv file to then import into Excel.

IMHO - this is one of my greatest pet peeves.

Synchronising Excel and AutoCAD. It's a good concept but in all reality, trying to keep two documents created by two different programs up to date is a waste of time. I'm more for creating reports from data. Of course this needs to be formatted so the human reading it can understand it. It also seems redundant to edit AutoCAD drawings in Excel, and falling into the wrong hands (someone who has no idea what they are doing) can create quite a headache.

 

There are other ways to go about doing this. Creating a script file and lisp routine that extracts the title block information from all drawings and then builds a report or list with this information. You can go a step further and create a csv file to then import into Excel.

Synchronization is hard to implement w/o event functions. Can autocad lisp do this, I don't know? I'm developing lisp support for my custom cad software, and I was thinking of event functions implementation in lisp, something like OnObjectModified, OnErase, OnObjectAdded and so on. It would be very easy to sync cad drawing and excel documents using this feature. Another question is usefulness of sync. I would like to hear from others about is it worth to implement event functions in lisp?

don't know if this will suite your need :

 

Update Title Block

That looks very close to what I want. I am going to play around with the LISP and what I can. That does in fact point in a very promising direction!

@CADMASTER1128

I'm curious, do you use any PLM software with your design files? Anything like ProductStream from Autodesk? It also helps with synchronisation and all stages of document development and release. I don't really think Excel is the right program for that unless all you want to do is keep a list of drawings and the contents of title blocks. But what happens when Designer Dave creates a new AutoCAD file and he has no title block in it. Or he creates several paper spaces each with a title block. (One drawing model and five paper spaces with title blocks.) How do you keep track of that?

I'm not trying to put your ideas down, I'm just curious as to what you need it for and how you would impliment it in a real world situation. Any reports or Excel lists of drawings we make is just a by-product. The Excel file is never changed and it's never used to manipulate the content of drawings. It's printed out for information, but the drawings are that what takes precedence over everything. It just seems like going a parallel route whould take more effort than what the actual benefit provides.