DBUG> Re: DBUG #162: Regarding Excel tables into DCAD

[James Horecka, AIA <jhorecka@pe.net>]

Regarding Excel tables into DCAD:

Well, one way to do it is to highlight a column at a time in Excel, Copy,
then open NotePad and paste the column into NotePad. Save the notepad file
with a name, like Col1.  Now, alt-tab back to Excel, and select and copy the
next column. alt-tab to NotePad, hit New, paste the column, hit Save and
save the file as Col2. Alt-tab back to Excel, and repeat. Oh, keep NotePad
open during all this, rather than restarting it each time, so that it stays
pointed to the same subdirectory.

Now, go into DCAD, and go Text, File I/O, FromFile, navigate to the correct
subdirectory, and pick your Col1.txt file. Spot the location, and there you
are, the first column. Do the same for the rest of the columns, snapping to
a grid or whatever to hold horizontal alignment, and set to center or left
as appropriate for the particular column.

You can use the Justify feature after the text is placed if you need to.

Sounds a little tedious, but really not too bad.

Draw your vertical table lines. Verticals are easy. be sure you put the
table LINES on a separate layer. Whack the text columns and or vert lines
until you like them.

The text will come in one line after the other. You may want to double-space
between lines instead. This is easy. Just do an enlarge, with the X
enlargement set to 1, and the Y enlargement set to 2. Select the text, and
you have double-spaced rows. If some rows have more than one line of text in
them, you may have to go back in and shift these upwards. (or, you could set
the Factor first; depends on the table).

Draw the horizontal lines last. Snap to the lower left corner grip of the
text, and draw the line to the right. You can draw each line, or copy the
lines, with the spacing set by selecting the grips on the text. One thing
about copying, the text line spacing is a funky number, so if you have a
tall column there is a chance you could be 'off' by the time the last line
is copied.

A way to get around that is to work with grids, and when doing the enlarge f
or text you are familiar with you do the enlarge at an Exact amount to make
it fall on a grid of your choosing. Setting this up takes doing 100 lines of
text, and calcing the ratio. Once you have the ratio, keep it on file. But,
this is not necessary. (similar to set up correct Factor to do this).

Anyway, the last step is to one-line trim the horizontal lines to the left
and right lines, and then shift all the horizontal lines Down just a bit so
the text rows appear vertically centered in the cells. Do a little more
whacking if it is not yet perfect, and you are done.

Once you get the hang of it, you can knock these out in no time. It is much
faster to handle complex tables in Excel, and then import them, especially
if the table involves mathematical calculations. Also, you can spell-check
in Excel.

Sure, you can readily do simple tables in DCAD, or edit ones you already
have. Don't ignore that method. But if you have 250 doors, of all sorts,
crank up Excel.

Keep the Excel table simple. Merged cells can goof you up.

Jim Horecka, AIA

-----Original Message-----
From: Randal L. Rhodes <rhodes@salisbury.net>
To: datacad-dbug-digest@world.std.com <datacad-dbug-digest@world.std.com>
Date: Wednesday, July 22, 1998 4:10 AM
Subject: DBUG> Re: datacad-dbug-digest V2 #162


>> HELP!
>
>I am using Dcad8 for windows and would like to import a schedule from
excell.  Does
>anyone know how to do this?  Cheap Tricks Sept'95 explains way using corell
draw - but
>we do not have this program.  Anyother way?
>
>rhodes@salisbury.net
>
>
>                   *******************************
> For DataCAD Links, FAQs, Tutorials/info-
http://world.std.com/~eshu/links.htm
> Postings -> datacad-dbug@world.std.com - Subscription help:
eshu@world.std.com
>

                   *******************************
 For DataCAD Links, FAQs, Tutorials/info- http://world.std.com/~eshu/links.htm
 Postings -> datacad-dbug@world.std.com - Subscription help: eshu@world.std.com