Link Excel file to AutoCAD

[Anonymous]

I have a simple excel spreadsheet that calculates our lighting loads and I want to insert it into my CAD drawing. I've tried data linking, paste special, etc. but nothing seems to work.

- I want the file to update in CAD when we change the excel file (or prompt to)

- I want the inserted excel file to take on the formatting of my table style (text style, size, etc. )

- I don't want the table to be editable in CAD

Please let me know if this is possible and what I am missing.

THANKS!

[pendean]

Explore OLE Linking in AutoCAD's HELP files if you want your options: I believe the chapter is called Link And Embed Data, Overview of Object Linking and Embedding.
Also look up a Chapter called LINK A TABLE TO EXTERNAL DATA.

TABLE, DATALINK, DATALINKUPDATE, INSERTOBJ and OLELINKS commands too.

[Mike.Lamka]

In excel, highlight the cells you want and hit ctrl+c.  In autocad hit paste special and select the 'Paste Link' option and then select 'microsoft excel worksheet'.  it will also update that cell range whenever you update the excel file.

[NJfire305]

What do you do if your "paste link" bullet is greyed out????

[Mike.Lamka]

The only time i've seen it grayed out is when i tried to see if it would work with Open Office.  As long as you're using MS Office 2003 or newer then it should work.  What version of AutoCAD are you running?

[NJfire305]

I am working in v2012. However I just figured out what was happening. The excel file I am using is a file from one of our consultants. I realized after I posted first that the excel file was locked from editing. I could straight copy and paste from the file into Autocad but I could not paste link it. Once I realized  the potential issue I clicked the "enabled editing" button in excell and tried to copy / paste special again and voilà it worked, the paste link was available to me.

[rwalker]

Do you know what Ts is in 2018 Autocad it doesn't give me the option for excel anymore?