Importing an Excel spreadsheet to an idw

[chris54]

I have seen several post regarding this, but I have been unable to get acceptable results.

I have an Excel spreadsheet of 11 columns by 18 rows.  I need to get this to an idw.  All of my attempts to date have resulted in text with the dreaded jagged edges. 

Is it possible with Inventor 2020 to get a spreadsheet to an idw without having to reenter everything into a General Table?

I have tried to get this done with both a spreadsheet and saving the spreadsheet as a pdf, and importing that.

Any help greatly appreciated.

Chris Breidenbaugh

Inventor 2020

[dan_inv09]

How does it print?

It might look horrible on your screen but it might print okay.

You could also cut and paste into the table instead of reentering it all. (You still have to format it all - what formatting is available)

But, yes, there should be better ways to do it - we've been asking for years and years.

(You can just imagine the heartbreak when we saw what we had actually gotten when they finally let us have that "General Table".)

[chris54 · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the reply.  Unfortunately, you cannot paste to a General Table.  I also tried selecting the spreadsheet in the General Spreadsheet setup; I only get the first column to come on the idw.

[mcgyvr]

In excel.. Select all of the data you want and "copy"... Go into Inventor and "paste special"

Did that work? 

If not and you only got some of the data go into excel and select all of the data and select a smaller font size.. Then copy and in Inventor "paste special"..

Did that work and you got more data? if so your table is too large for Inventor.

[chris54]

Where are you finding "Paste Special"??

[dan_inv09]

I guess it's a little trick:

Ctrl+V will still work in many places (not just Inventor) where there does not appear to be an option to Paste

[dan_inv09]

Tools tab

[dan_inv09]

Paste Link will like to the file if you want to hang on to the separate excel file

Ts you can open in excel but it seems to be its own thing

(and what the heck does "Ts" mean?!?)

The others are just like static pictures I guess

(nothing seems to react if you try adding rows or columns to the table in excel)

[rhasell]

---

@chris54 wrote:

 I only get the first column to come on the idw.

---

The easy fix for that is to use the ASCII character of 255 in the blank cells.

This allows 'Blank' cells to be imported into Inventor.

[dan_inv09]

(where'd the post you quoted go?)

I can't seem to get it to only "show" the first column

I did get it give me the just first row by selecting a blank area of the spreadsheet, are we trying to import a blank table?

Maybe a screenshot of what we're trying to do would help to figure out how to help? 

[rhasell]

Hi Dan

Was that directed at me? If so I don't understand your question.

What Chris posted was that only the first column is imported into Inventor. The reason for that is Inventor stops importing a spreadsheet when it encounters a blank cell.

The work around is is to use the ASCII character of space, which is 'ALT-255' This spoofs Inventor into thinking that the cell is populated, and Inventor will continue to import the cells below or alongside the 'blank' cell.

This allows for easier formatting of a spreadsheet, and also gets rid of the awful cut/paste methods mentioned above.

The only thing that you can't do is the line formatting and any individual font changes, in that case you are stuck with the cut/paste method.

[dan_inv09]

I thought the quote in your post was a whole post and I could not find a post that consisted only of that statement. I was confused because I thought Chris must have replied to something else with just that. I didn't remember that that was part of his first response way back at the top of the thread.

anyway

I made myself a new spreadsheet with blank cells, blank rows, blank columns. Cut and paste into a table brings in all the data selected in the spreadsheet as far as I can see.

I must be doing something wrong.

Maybe "selecting the spreadsheet in the General Spreadsheet setup" is something different. Where do you do that?

[rhasell]

Hi

The cut and paste method works as you mentioned. (My personal preference is I hate it, and never use it, because it's almost a one time use only, editing etc can be a pain)

The method I am using is the General table method, and then create a link to a spreadsheet. Besides the line/shading formatting, this method is much better for my purposes, as I re-use drawings a lot, and tables can be manipulated by editing them in Excel, and also replaced with ease.

[dan_inv09]

I'm wasn't linking it to the excel spreadsheet because I can't find an easy way to get back to the spreadsheet from the drawing. Maybe if that was something we needed enough to make some sort of a company policy about where the spreadsheet is supposed to be and how it is dealt with ... (I'm not confident that I could remember that there was a file associated with my drawing even just a few months down the line (and what happens if the drawing is moved to another directory without the spreadsheet?)). (or someone tries to add something on the drawing without knowing to look for the spreadsheet - is the spreadsheet going to override their changes the next time the file is open? I would assume it also would if the next change was done with the spreadsheet. Not to rain on your parade but I've seen things, ugly things, go wrong when others get a hold of what seemed the only logical way to do something on a drawing)

I was just messing around with a table linked to an excel file:

I had a blank row and only got some of the table on the drawing.

I closed the drawing opened the excel and filled that row and a column that had only had an entry in the second row.

When I closed excel (When I tried to open the drawing with excel open  "Excel installation is required for this operation. Failed to launch Excel.") and opened the drawing the table suddenly had all the rows ... and the column that had just the one entry, it was moved to the end.

Whatever, enough about you and me, did we manage to get the OP on the right track?

[rhasell]

Hi

Every company has their own standards, All I did was answer the question on why Chris could not import blank columns/rows. (That is why you could not import the blank rows in your test until you populated the blank cells.)

I store my spreadsheet with the drawing, in the project drawing directory. I also understand that things can go wrong when others get their grubby hands on your work, fortunately I am in a small office, so things like that are easier to manage, but sometimes one has to go to extremes to 'fool proof' your work.

To answer your issues, there is a 3rd party entry in the browser tree, where you can manage the spreadsheet. Also, if the sheet is missing, the information is not lost, you are unable to edit/change anything. (The benefit of your method is the information is always in the drawing)

As for the excel missing issue, I have no idea.

[chris54 · Accepted solution]

Well....I never got this to work as I wanted. 

The problem is that I had empty rows separating rows with data.

Tried entering ALT-255, but that just put Alt-255 in all the cells, which came over to my idw.  Probably was not formatted properly in Excel.

So, I made a table in Inventor and re-entered the data.

Thanks for your help.  I did learn some things through this exercise...

[dan_inv09]

Hold the Alt key and type 255 on the number pad.

(I think it has to be the number pad)

[dan_inv09]

Do you just need taller rows to make the data easier to read, or is it something like a couple of rows that go together and a blank row before a couple of more rows that go with each other, etc.?

Could you copy your data to a new sheet in excel and get rid of the blank rows (maybe with Sort or something) then inset the blank rows in Inventor after you've pasted?