topic Excel OLE on the Tool Palette?? in AutoCAD Forum

Excel OLE on the Tool Palette??

owen66 — Tue, 12 Oct 2021 22:01:40 GMT

I see that Excel OLEs break when you copy them into a new dwg.

Could possibly do a datalink with a relative link to a read-only folder and put a hyper link to the file in the dwg so users can copy the Excel file to their project...but would like to hear if I'm missing anything about OLEs (which I've traditionally hated, but seem to be more stable than they were years ago)

Re: Excel OLE on the Tool Palette??

pendean — Wed, 13 Oct 2021 12:21:44 GMT

>>>...I see that Excel OLEs break when you copy them into a new dwg....<<<
What do you mean? Can you elaborate and post screenshots or videos?

Or do you mean pathing is lost (much like XREFs for example) when files locations are no longer accessible?

Re: Excel OLE on the Tool Palette??

owen66 — Wed, 13 Oct 2021 14:16:50 GMT

Screenshots wouldn't really help, but it's not a path issue (are there paths for OLEs? I thought the entire point of embedding was that there was no external file)

In any case, when you embed an Excel file in AutoCAD, you can double-click it (in ACAD) and that will open the file in Excel for full editing. When you close Excel, the file is saved in the DWG file.

If you copy the OLE entity from one DWG file and paste it into a new DWG file, it loses its editability. It's like the OLE object turns into a dumb graphic - double-clicking does nothing.

Re: Excel OLE on the Tool Palette??

pendean — Wed, 13 Oct 2021 15:46:21 GMT

FWIW Pathing is always present unless you actively and deliberately break/unlink those OLEs (aka they become not editable, if you can edit them they are still linked to a source file that resides somewhere, aka is still linked).

If you want that freedom you describe, your Excel OLE needs to be converted to an AutoCAD TABLE in one DWG file, then you can copy/paste that table all day long into other files and it remain editable but separate from the source table/DWG and the original source Excel.

TLDR: OLEs without links are "dumb pictures" aka uneditable.