Inventor and Calc

[Francisco_García]

Hello

Why Inventor doesn´t work with OpenOffice´s Calc?

Regars!

[swalton · Accepted solution]

Openoffice or other opensource spreadsheet support has been requested in forum posts over the years. 

This is the only Idea post I found about it. http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ideas/part-to-part-link/idi-p/6379756

Autodesk has not chosen to spend programming effort to support Calc from Openoffice. 

[Anonymous]

The Excel trap stinks. Both OpenOffice and LibreOffice support an open source document format. AutoDesk should try to be a little more versatile.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Guys,

As of Inventor 2021, it no longer requires Excel to be installed in order to perform some workflows. You only need Excel installed when you want to edit an Excel table in Excel. Otherwise, all workflows should function correctly without Excel.exe. If you see a case (except editing Excel spreadsheet in Excel) not working, please let us know asap.

Many thanks!

[Anonymous]

I'm aware of using the workflow but it is crude and doesn't work well
for creating large tables. All I'm asking is let us have an export and
import function for the table so that we can use better tools than
Microsoft.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! Do you mind elaborating the workflow here? I am sorry I am a bit confused. You can use Open source tool to create a table however you like. Then save it as .xls. Most spreadsheet tools can save as Excel files, right?

Many thanks!

[Anonymous]

I'm working on iParts and couldn't find a means to work on the tables
anywhere but in Inventor or Excel. If you have a link to instructions to
work with the files externally that would be great.

Thank you.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! An iPart table can only be edited by the author table editor or Excel. You cannot edit it externally. iPart/iAssembly is meant to create library components driven by the author table.

It sounds like you are trying to drive iPart by other means. You are trying to do Configuration workflows, right? I suggest you use iLogic rule to drive the changes. Then use iLogic Design Copy (or Place iLogic Component) to spawn a variant. If you cannot figure out, please share the files here. We have quite a few iLogic experts to help take a look.

Many thanks!

[dieter.baldingerKDWEQ]

I found a workaround to use Libre Office to edit tables.

(I tried with the tables for iFeature and iPart)

1. Open the Temp folder of your computer usually (C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Temp)
2. Click at the Excel icon in Inventor
3. Do not accept the warning "The changes via Spreadsheet will take effect after the Excel porcess is closed."! (This is important)
4. Open the Temp folder there should be a new xls file (For example iFeatures….xls or iPart….xls)
5. Open the xls with Libre Calc and edit the file
6. Save the file
7. Go back to Inventor
8. Accept finally the warning
9. The demo version of Excel will be opened
10. Pess Ctrl+S (Save) Immediately before any warnings of Excel pop up.
11. Close Excel
12. Click in the table tab in Inventor (The changes should be made)

I'm not sure if without any excel it will work. I had the demo version installed but no activation of the full version.

I hope this workaround will help.

Kind regards

Marc

[Frederick_Law]

Try set Libre as default app for xls files.

[tony.a.abdo]

Hey Johnson, I'm on 2023.4 and having problems linking parameters with a sheet created in LibreOffice. I tried saving as xls and xslx with no success. However, if I link those same files on second computer that does have a copy of MS Office, it works and henceforth I can edit the sheet directly in Libre on first computer and parameters update as expected. Default apps for xls/xlsx is set LibreOffice on Win11 machine too. Not sure what to do now, appreciate the help!

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! Inventor 2024 and earlier still may still require Excel to be installed. You may try creating "UseLibXL" environment variable  and setting it to 1 in Windows Control Panel -> System -> Advanced System Settings -> Environment Variable.

On Inventor 2025, the variable will not be required (https://help.autodesk.com/view/INVNTOR/2025/ENU/?guid=GUID-A3F0E143-62A1-4C21-A57F-19BA8E21E3D3).

Many thanks!

[tony.a.abdo]

Hey Johnson, bad news is that the suggested solution did not fix the problem. I tried as both system variable and user variable with a restart in between in both cases. Good news though is that after upgrading to 2025 LO Calc works with no fussing around. Thanks!