Excel VBA to Save Copy As

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

I'm trying to use Excel VBA to call Inventor to open an idw drawing, then Save Copy As dwg for AutoCAD. I found, in VBA, the class Document that has a SaveAs method but when I run the code it would not compile, giving me the message "Object doesn't support this property or method".

Can anyone point me to the right direction? My main goal is to use Excel VBA to save an idw drawing to an AutoCAD dwg file as a new copy. Thanks.

Danny

[schmidmi]

Hi Danny -

Thank you for your question.  I was able to create a sample VBA script that takes known *.dwg file and save it as a *.idw.  Take a look at the example for any differences there are between it and yours.

Public Sub SaveAsSample()
    
    Dim sFilePath As String
    sFilePath = "C:\Temp\Drawing1.dwg"

    Dim oDoc As Document
    Set oDoc = ThisApplication.Documents.Open(sFilePath)
    
    Dim sFilePathCopy As String
    sFilePathCopy = "C:\Temp\Drawing1_copy.idw"
    
    Call oDoc.SaveAs(sFilePathCopy, True)
    
    oDoc.Close
 
End Sub

Let me know if you continue to have trouble.

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Hi Michael, thank you for your reply. I'm sorry I have been late in trying this. I actually have stopped checking the message box a day after I posted the question, thinking that no one had an answer.

What I needed was actually the other way around. I would like to have VBA (from Excel) open an idw and SaveCopy as dwg.

Nevertheless, I tried your solution to see if I can run it. When I ran it, I received an error in the Set oDoc line (underlined below) saying ActiveX component can't create object. Do you know what it means and how to fix it? Thanks again.

Public Sub SaveAsSample()
   
    Dim sFilePath As String
    sFilePath = "C:\Inventor Tutorial\GEMMA MEDWAY MODEL\2000 - Plenum Drive\Drawings\Drawing1.dwg"

    Dim oDoc As Document
    Set oDoc = ThisApplication.Documents.Open(sFilePath)
   
    Dim sFilePathCopy As String
    sFilePathCopy = "C:\Temp\Drawing1_copy.idw"
   
    Call oDoc.SaveAs(sFilePathCopy, True)
   
    oDoc.Close
 
End Sub

[MechMachineMan]

Have you properly connected to inventor?

ie;

Dim oInvApp As New Inventor.Application

Set oInvApp = GetObject("", "Inventor.Application")

'Do Things

oInvApp.Quit

Set oInvApp = Nothing

[Anonymous]

Hi Justin,

I did not include the code you proposed at first. After I added it, I am still having the same issue.

Public Sub SaveAsSample()

'Dim oInvApp As New Inventor.Application I disabled this and replaced with the line below because VBA says I'm using "New" improperly
Dim oInvApp As Object

Set oInvApp = GetObject("", "Inventor.Application")
oInvApp.Visible = True

Dim sFilePath As String
sFilePath = "C:\Inventor Tutorial\GEMMA MEDWAY MODEL\2000 - Plenum Drive\Drawings\Drawing1.dwg"

Dim oDoc As Document
Set oDoc = ThisApplication.Documents.Open(sFilePath) 'This is where I get the runtime error 429 --> ActiveX component can't create object
   
Dim sFilePathCopy As String
sFilePathCopy = "C:\Temp\Drawing1_copy.idw"
   
Call oDoc.SaveAs(sFilePathCopy, True)
   
oDoc.Close

oInvApp.Quit

Set oInvApp = Nothing

End Sub

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

Danny Tan

[MechMachineMan]

Change this ThisApplication to oInvApp.

Opening the app doesn't do much if you don't reference the object when you
actually need to use it. Ha

[MechMachineMan]

Change this ThisApplication to oInvApp.

Opening the app doesn't do much if you don't reference the object when you
actually need to use it. Ha

[MechMachineMan · Accepted solution]

Change this ThisApplication to oInvApp.

Opening the app doesn't do much if you don't reference the object when you
actually need to use it. Ha

[Anonymous]

Hello Justin,

I've tried your solution; it works. Thank you. Sorry for the late reply; I had wanted to roll out the solution to my team and make sure it works before accepting as solution and closing out this topic.

Thanks again, and Happy Holidays!

Danny