Table from Excel, no merging allowed?

[cbenner]

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-forum/excel-spreadsheets-into-drawings/m-p/5631220/highlight/...

Referencing this old thread, I have a similar but more infuriating problem today.  A user tried to place a spreadsheet onto a drawing, and only got the top row of data.  Fiddling with the spreadsheet and my Inventor table settings, we discovered that the table only worked when all merged cells in the Excel file were removed.  The results are, to say the least.... dog ugly.  Is there something I am missing here?  Because I can't believe that the technology doesn't exist to place a spreadsheet that includes merged cells onto an Inventor drawing... especially this far into the game.

[Curtis_W · Accepted solution]

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@cbenner wrote:

I can't believe that the technology doesn't exist to place a spreadsheet that includes merged cells onto an Inventor drawing... especially this far into the game.

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Hi cbenner,

Someone can correct me if I missed something recently, but as far as I know merged cells are indeed not supported.

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

[MechMachineMan]

Definitely does kind of suck that it doesn't account for the merged cells. However, merged cells are a huge PITA because they do cause almost anything in VBA to act funny.

If you want to spreadsheet to still look the same, but function properly, it might be worth swapping to using "Center Across Selection" instead of merging cells.

[cbenner]

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@MechMachineMan wrote:

Definitely does kind of suck that it doesn't account for the merged cells. However, merged cells are a huge PITA because they do cause almost anything in VBA to act funny.

If you want to spreadsheet to still look the same, but function properly, it might be worth swapping to using "Center Across Selection" instead of merging cells.

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Center Across also did not work.  But thanks for the suggestion.

[cbenner]

Thanks @Curtis_W...

It just BLOWS my mind that in 2017, to get a spreadsheet for ASME welding data onto an Inventor drawing, in the format in which it was given to me... I have to go old school OLE object!

@ChrisMitchell01 really?

[Mark.Lancaster]

@cbenner

I could be way off and my old mind is playing tricks on me..   

But I remember a while back someone was having issues with a Inventor table and excel.  In the end the problem was related to having blank cell columns and rows in the excel spreadsheet.  Which led the table in Inventor to be truncated.  So in theory when you merge cells in excel, I was thinking that Inventor is still seeing those merged cells as separate ones and the extras are seen as blanks and thus the failed output.  But I could be wrong..

[cbenner]

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@Mark.Lancaster wrote:

@cbenner

I could be way off and my old mind is playing tricks on me..   

But I remember a while back someone was having issues with a Inventor table and excel.  In the end the problem was related to having blank cell columns and rows in the excel spreadsheet.  Which led the table in Inventor to be truncated.  So in theory when you merge cells in excel, I was thinking that Inventor is still seeing those merged cells as separate ones and the extras are seen as blanks and thus the failed output.  But I could be wrong..

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@Mark.Lancaster  I think the thread you are referring to is the one linked in my original post... in which I wrote the solution.  It may well be that merged cells are seen as blank.  But that doesn't make it better.... I should be able to link an Excel spreadsheet as created.  It works with no trouble in AutoCAD, but Inventor chokes on it.  And this is not the time for me to start changing all of my idw's to dwg's.  Thanks for the thoughts, Mark.

[Mark.Lancaster]

@cbenner  Sorry my bad..    Was in a rush and didn't click on the link you provided.

[Anonymous]

Hi Cbenner,

Any updates on this issue?

Its kind of frustrating thou. Even in 2018 this functions still not implemented.

[Mark.Lancaster]

@Anonymous

Nothing has changed..

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Guys,

Has it been submitted as an idea on Inventor Ideas forum?

Many thanks!

[Anonymous]

@MarkLancaster,

Thank you for the update.

I just find it very frustrating as, this functions is very useful to us users and Autodesk did not do anything for the past years or releases. Whilst in AutoCAD this functionality works perfectly.

[andrewdroth]

Inventor seriously lacks in the table department.

And for creating technical documents it's almost as bad of a joke as the revision cloud.

It's well documented in the Idea Station.

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ideas/better-table-feature-in-idw/idi-p/4392231

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ideas/table-into-drawing/idi-p/6704386

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ideas/custom-tables/idi-p/6460702

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ideas/please-fix-and-improve-the-drawing-table-behaviors-in-...

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ideas/text-options-in-a-table/idi-p/5670396

Inventor needs a real table editor. Like AutoCAD has. 

Currently, our best approach for creating tank design data tables is;

• Create an Excel Table
• Print to PDF
• Save PDF as an image
• Paste image in IV.

As you can image editing our tables is tedious, but this is the best IV can do.

It's terrible.

[Yijiang.Cai · Accepted solution]

This idea has been implemented within Autodesk Inventor 2025. Please review the Inventor 2025 What's New article here. For more information regarding how you may leverage the feature, and please review this page. Special thanks to everyone who cast a vote for it.