Sorting by Summary Property

[Anonymous]

I have over 1,000 CAD files I want to search by "Custom" or "Summary" Properties and export a list including File Name, Path, and Properties to Excel. Any idea if there is a tool or another way to do this? Either in CAD or in Windows Explorer.

[Otto]

Hello emccrorie.contractor and welcome to the Autodesk community!

It looks like you are looking for information related to datalinking between AutoCAD and Excel. Community members with similar questions found the following article(s) useful:

DATALINK (Command)

To update data links, use the DATALINKUPDATE (Command)

To provide an interface to external database tables use:DBCONNECT (Command).

[john.vellek]

Hi @Anonymous,

There is not a great way to do this in plain AutoCAD however you might do a quick search in the Autodesk App Store as it appears there might be some tools that will do this.

Please select the Accept as Solution button if my post solves your issue or answers your question.

[john.vellek]

Hi @Anonymous,

I am checking back to see if my post helped you with your problem. Please add a post with how you decide to proceed and your results so other Community members may benefit.

Please hit the Accept as Solution button if a post or posts solves your issue or answers your question.

[Anonymous]

It seems there is no way to sort by custom property and export this into an excel file. Hard to keep good records of the files I have, as they are always changing and being added to. The plug-ins to Autodesk do not provide any features that help with us or do anything significantly different than a command line or feature already installed to CAD. Thanks so much for your help.

[john.vellek]

Hi @Anonymous,

It sounds like you are perhaps ready for a document management system. If you have an Intranet portal that utilizes Sharepoint you might consider starting with that and there are add-ins to help AutoCAD files behave in that environment.  If you want one specifically designed to handle Autodesk product you should take a look at Vault.

Please select the Accept as Solution button if my post solves your issue or answers your question.

[TerryDotson]

Take a look at the Drawing Catalog tool in DotSoft's ToolPac.  Running inside of and requiring AutoCAD, it can quickly harvest the properties (and other) information from multiple drawings and send the results to Excel in a single click.  We offer a 30-day working evaluation as well.