Michael’s Corner

Michael's Corner is a monthly publication written by Michael E. Beall, Autodesk Authorized Author and peripatetic AutoCAD trainer. Michael travels all over the USA, bringing his fantastic experience and great understanding of AutoCAD to his clients. Michael's Corner brings together many of the tips, tricks and methods developed during these training sessions for the benefit of all users.

Michael's Corner provides something for every AutoCAD user. Every month, a number of articles cover a wide range of topics, suitable for users at all levels, including "The Basics" for those just starting out. Essentially, the aim of Michael's Corner is to help all AutoCAD users work smarter and faster.

This month…

From the Vault

Originally published March 2005

Excel and AutoCAD: OLE

"Object Linking and Embedding". That should take care of the first question. An OLE object is data from another application, such as Word or Excel, that is then inserted into AutoCAD. When the application file from which the OLE object is modified, the OLE object in AutoCAD automatically updates.

When you need to bring Excel data into AutoCAD, there are two scenarios to consider

Q1. Do I want to be able to edit the data in Excel and have the data automatically update the OLE object in AutoCAD?

Q2. Do I just want the data in AutoCAD as editable AutoCAD objects?

Instructions for inserting an OLE object linked to the data in Excel:

1. To begin with, both the Excel file and the AutoCAD drawing need to be named before you begin, otherwise Windows won't have valid filenames to make the association.
2. In Excel, select the data cells to copy, then click Copy.
3. In AutoCAD, select EditPaste Special, then click the Paste Link radio button.
4. Specify a point in the drawing where you want to place the data.

Your drawing updates all instance of the edited block with the changes. The original block from the tool palette is not effected by this procedure, just the references in the current drawing.

Note 1:
If you are on AutoCAD 2000-2004, the size of the incoming OLE object depends upon the size of your display. For example, let's say you selected a cell size of 5 cols x 15 rows and pasted it into Model Space. If you zoom into or away from the drawing, then paste the same size again, the OLE object will not be the same size. Therefore, if you have a bunch of Excel stuff to bring in, I would suggest creating a rectangle in AutoCAD that you can ZoomWindow around prior to each paste. Clunky but effective.

Note 2:
If you are on AutoCAD 2005 (gold star!!), the size of the text in the data cells of the incoming Excel OLE object is 3/16" by default. This means that you could be zoomed in or out, the cell data still comes in the same size.

Note 3:
I saw something from Leonid Nemirovsky that mentioned the size limit of incoming Excel data into A2002-A2005 is 52 rows by six columns. Visit his website for more tips: http://home.pacifier.com/~nemi.

Instructions for inserting data that becomes editable AutoCAD objects

1. In Excel, if you want the resulting AutoCAD data text to be in a grid, I would highlight the content in Excel and click the borders button for full matrix of borders.
2. Select the data cells to copy, then click Copy.
3. In AutoCAD, select EditPaste Special, then in the list, select AutoCAD Entities.
4. Specify a point in the drawing where you want to place the data.

If you have A2000-A2004, you now have editable single-line text and lines, although the lines don't happen to meet around the edge of the data cells. It's been like that every since I can remember. Also, the text format from Excel is not translated into AutoCAD. The text is imported into a style named WMF-Arial.

If you have A2005, however, you now have a table and the format of the text from Excel is also displayed in the table. See my January 2005 article for more information on Tables.

Other OLE Tidbits

• Select the OLE object, then right-click and you will see you have an OLE-related list of items.
• Be careful with the Text Size feature. I got "unexpected results" when I made too many changes. Thankfully there's a Reset item on the shortcut menu.
• Double-click the OLE object in AutoCAD and the Excel file from which it was generated automatically opens. Make changes in the Excel file and save it. Return to AutoCAD to see the changes.
• The OLELINKS command opens a dialog box from which you can break the link to the Excel file when necessary.

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