topic Create Table from existing text in AutoCAD Forum

Create Table from existing text

matthew.scottVP8DB — Wed, 27 Apr 2022 13:27:45 GMT

I have an .dwg that was created from an exported 3D program. This results in a BOM table that is a block. When exploded the block is just lines and MText. My goal is to create a table that I can export into a spreadsheet. Any ideas?

Re: Create Table from existing text

JBerns — Wed, 27 Apr 2022 13:57:28 GMT

@matthew.scottVP8DB,

Did you try any of the solutions from this forum?

https://autocad.space/autocad-text-to-table/

Let us know if this is helpful?

Optionally, post a sample drawing for the community to work with.

Regards,

Jerry

Re: Create Table from existing text

matthew.scottVP8DB — Wed, 27 Apr 2022 14:17:38 GMT

@Anonymous Thanks for the response.

I had discovered Data Extraction but am having some difficulty. I have a table of text 25 rows, 12 columns = 300 items. I can extract the text into 300 rows of data, but they are not organized in any order. I have even tried to define the selection set by picking text objects one-by-one to try to get them organized into some order, no luck.

Re: Create Table from existing text

JBerns — Wed, 27 Apr 2022 14:33:47 GMT

@matthew.scottVP8DB,

I did some more Googling:

Try this lisp routine:

https://cadtips.cadalyst.com/tables/convert-plain-geometry-tables

Video tutorial:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nusUNEDkUg

Let us know of your success.

Regards,

Jerry

Re: Create Table from existing text

matthew.scottVP8DB — Wed, 27 Apr 2022 14:48:00 GMT

@JBerns LISP routine worked perfectly. Thanks for the leg work!

Re: Create Table from existing text

arshad_iqbalEPGJT — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 08:56:04 GMT

"cot " lisp is working in cad 2021 & less

but not working in autocad 2024

Re: Create Table from existing text

pendean — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 13:16:10 GMT

@arshad_iqbalEPGJT wrote:
"cot " lisp is working in cad 2021 & less
but not working in autocad 2024

It works just fine here in 2024 and 2025: can you share your DWG file where this does not work?

Re: Create Table from existing text

MSchille-1994 — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 15:46:23 GMT

This link no longer works.

Re: Create Table from existing text

caddude — Sun, 08 Jun 2025 18:13:08 GMT

It looks like CADALYST dig some reorganization of their website and that link is now broken. I found links to the actual script here located in this post: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/autocad-forum/make-autocad-table-from-lines-and-text/td-p/2895384

Re: Create Table from existing text

will_young — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 08:44:47 GMT

If you print the dwg to pdf (or have a table as a raster image) you could use Excel both for converting pdf or images to tables.

Windows snipping tool also has a converter for smaller tables.

Excel vector based pdf import

Excel table from raster image

Windows snipping tool table from raster image

Re: Create Table from existing text

caddude — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 09:11:39 GMT

Thanks @will_young!! I didn’t consider trying to convert it first. I’ll give that a try 🙂

Re: Create Table from existing text

dgladfelter — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 15:08:28 GMT

If you plotted the exploded table to a raster format, the Raster Design toolset (included with AutoCAD) has a Recognize Table command.

Re: Create Table from existing text

caddude — Tue, 10 Jun 2025 11:12:03 GMT

@dgladfelter oohhh! I’ll try that one too! Thank you! 🙂

Re: Create Table from existing text

juanjara81 — Sat, 25 Oct 2025 20:36:22 GMT

Funciona Perfecto. El enlace del mensaje esta caido pero en la descripcion del video tambien hay un enlace que si funciona bien