topic Re: How to get paste special to bring in excel formatting? in AutoCAD Forum

How to get paste special to bring in excel formatting?

Egbay — Thu, 28 Jul 2022 23:36:29 GMT

At work these are the steps we do to bring in an excel table into a CAD drawing:

Copy content from excel
In autocad
- Paste special->Paste link-> Autocad Entities

The problem is that some of the tables we want to bring in are formatted with excel cells having no boarders but when following the steps above the cell boarders appear. I'll add in some screenshots below. I know that in autocad you can select the cells, right click-> boarders and then format the cells that way. Problem is that the file with the data gets overwritten and when we have get the option to update datalinks in autocad, it reverts back to all having boarders again.

I'm not talking about 7 new rows being added to the original excel file and expecting the formatting to stay, rather just the data in the cells changing and that causing the autocad formatting to bring back the cell boarders.

If this is what it is then that is fine but I was wanting to see if anyone knew other ways to keep the excel formatting?

Re: How to get paste special to bring in excel formatting?

pendean — Fri, 29 Jul 2022 12:31:43 GMT

Reread your own post: you want EXCEL settings but you want to use AutoCAD settings 😉

Choose one OR the other.

FWIW: TABLESTYLE is not automagical, it requires user effort to create a look you wish to have before use.

Re: How to get paste special to bring in excel formatting?

-Igor- — Fri, 29 Jul 2022 13:54:22 GMT

If you turn off all the borders in the AutoCAD table style, it will follow the original excel formatting for the copy- paste method (Note: all borders will still be visible, but only those that are made visible in excel would print)

I would recommend a different approach though:

1. type "DataLink"

2. click "Create a new Excel Data Link"

3. Browse to your file

4. expand the arrow on bottom right

this data link process can be set up to be automated, for example the link can be made relative, and the excel file can be kept in the same folder as the dwg, then when you copy both to a new folder those would be linked to each other.

hope this helps.

Re: How to get paste special to bring in excel formatting?

dbroad — Fri, 29 Jul 2022 14:32:43 GMT

If you really want Excel formatting, is there a reason that you don't choose pastespec -> Paste -> Microsoft Excel Worksheet OR pastespec -> Paste Link -> Microsoft Excel Worksheet?

Seems like that would be more consistent with your intent of automatic updating.

Re: How to get paste special to bring in excel formatting?

Egbay — Fri, 29 Jul 2022 18:26:09 GMT

I was trying to see if I can bypass that effort so I thought Id ask where there are people with more knowledge/experience. Thanks for the help though.

Re: How to get paste special to bring in excel formatting?

Egbay — Fri, 29 Jul 2022 18:26:57 GMT

I'll give this a shot and report back. Thanks

Re: How to get paste special to bring in excel formatting?

Egbay — Fri, 29 Jul 2022 18:29:52 GMT

Good question. Im not sure, that is just how I was instructed things were done. Not sure if it had to do with files being overwritten so that the datalink can just be updated rather than having to copy and paste in the future? That's just my thoughts.

I'm trying to figure out ways to make our process easier/better and this is just something I wanted to look into

Re: How to get paste special to bring in excel formatting?

dbroad — Fri, 29 Jul 2022 20:51:32 GMT

Thanks. Cutting and pasting doesn't create a link to a file unless you use the link options. Seems to me that if you've going to use datalink, you don't cut and paste and you will still need the orginal excel file. In that case, if you want the Excel formatting, then copy/pasting a link to the Excel file makes sense.

Re: How to get paste special to bring in excel formatting?

Egbay — Thu, 04 Aug 2022 15:09:03 GMT

This unfortunately did not work. The other thing I tried to do was create a new table style but I dont believe that would be the consistent solution.