excel to autocad format

[rochel1280]

hi, good day to each and everyone.

im having a hard time now and guys, i really need a help..

my problem is this, how can I export my excel table into autocad format same scale with my existing drawing in autocad?

 

I used this command, I copy the excel table, then in autocad, paste special, then autocad entities..yes it appear in the drawing but its too big for my existing drawing. I tried using scale command but it doesnt work,

 

it is possible to paste my excel table same size in my drawing? I mean if in autocad im using 3mm font, then if i paste the table text will be same as 3mm?

 

it will takes me too much time if i will edit it column by column..

hope u can help me...please..

[dbroada]

why don't you try a datalink? That will give you full control and 2 way editing.

 

I have never had much success with copy & paste of xls files.

[rochel1280]

thanks Dave,

but I need to transfer the excel table into autocad format..

I wish to solve this..

[dbroada]

and datalink doesn't do that? In what way?

[rochel1280]

yes it did, but the image is not autocad entry..as per our drawing requirement, all drawing must be in autocad format..not with cliparts..

[dbroada]

cuting & pasting gives you a clip art. Datalink gives you an acad table entry. I clearly don't understand your requirement. hopefully somebody else does. good luck.

[SPARKY77]

If you are going to past the excel file in there why don't you use a viewport to scale it?

[Crazy J]

yes it appear in the drawing but its too big for my existing drawing. I tried using scale command but it doesnt work,

 

I was just doing the same thing. I am only doing one drawing package and wanted to do a Bill of Materials on one of the sheets. Wanting to do it the "proper" way for future updates and such, I started down the datalink path (I believe this is the same as the dbconnect command). I looked at some tutorials and found it was a bit complicated for my one time use, with a deadline looming. So I went the excel route. You seem like you are on the right path. You can choose to paste special an area of an excel file as a link, so that it is still updateable. Once it ends up on your layout sheet, you can grip the corners or sides and adjust the overall size, which affects the appearance of the cells inside. You can then also double click in the excel area and get it to open in an excel window, and make more changes to it then to get it to your liking. You should be able to highlight all the cells you need to change and apply your formating once for all, and not have to do it individually in your cells.

 

If you are only doing this once or not very frequently, I'd suggest excel, but if you will be doing this routinely, then it makes sense to learn the datalink route.

 

I guess you also need to think how this .dwg file will be used. Will you email it to a customer or supplier? Will the data file have other confidential info in it that you can not share, etc....? That might influence your choice as well. If it is only ever going to be used internally on a server where it resides with all the appropriate linked files, then you have different options.

[Hoozin]

Consider this as another vote for datalink. It does exactly what you're asking for it to do. Even if you don't want to maintain a link between the excel file and the drawing, once you have the table filled out with the excel info, you can break the link between them and maintain the tables separately (or throw out the excel table if you wish).

 

I've used this on multiple occasions for MEL and List of Equipment tables in machinery arrangement drawings. It does require a bit of finesse and patience to make the table look like you want it to after you set it up the first couple times, but once you're used to it, it goes very quickly.

[Crazy J]

Whichever way you go, you do need to consider how the files will talk to one another. I linked my excel sheet today and realized that if it is updated, then I later open the AutoCAD file, it will read the updated Excel file. I sort of knew this, but just confirmed. The concern this brings me now is that since we are on a shared drive set up, a coworker might open the excel file, modify something, and then it will mess up my formatting in AutoCAD. I think that's the biggest thing. And Hoozin's comment about breaking the link is a good one to stress that point.

 

My excel file is a Bill of Materials, so I can see someone after I am gone going in and moving columns around to suit their preferences, perhaps putting the column for PO# in between the columns I have showing on my AutoCAD drawing. Or they go and highlight a row for some reason. A user of the prints will be left scratching their head as to why one row is highlighted.

 

All that said, the company is very small, has no drawing standards at all, and really doesn't use their AutoCAD drawings to even a small %age of the potential.

 

Just consider how the files that are all linked together will be kept secure and not end up messing one another up due to some one's unintended changes.

[rochel1280]

thanks guys! my problem has been solved!

God bless you all!

[Crazy J]

I found something out just this morning. I had done cut and paste special (as a link) of a part of my Bill of Material excel file and put it into my print. I chose a region, say, 6 columns wide. But it only pasted as 5. I was messing with it, trying to get that 6th column to show. By opening the excel file and making column widths smaller where possible, I was able to make "room" for AutoCAD to fit that 6th column again. Weird. In stuff like Powerpoint, you can extend the window wider or narrower to show or hide additional columns. But in AutoCAD that doesn't seem to be available, so I had to tinker around with it. I guess if I want to show 10 columns next time I'll have to copy and paste 11 or 12 columns from the original spreadsheet.....

[dbroada]

the problem with using cut and paste is that you only put in a screenshot, not active link. Try adding extra rows and get them to show. I found the only way to consistently achieve a good result was to delete the previous table and paste a new one. And even that didn't always work as there was a maximum file size. If your new table exceeded that size it jut got truncated.

 

That was our biggest reason for upgrading to 2006. Datalink was vastly improved and gave proper 2 way control. An update in either AutoCAD or excel NOTIFIED the other of the discrepancy (didn't update automatically) and you could then choose which application to make the master and re-sync the child. And has already been pointed out once the table is an AutoCAD all links can be broken leaving you with an AutoCAD table object.