New default for iLogic Excel functions in Inventor 2021

[MjDeck]

We changed the default for the underlying engine used by iLogic GoExcel functions in Inventor 2021. As a result, you might have to select the COM engine in order to get some of the functionality that was available by default in Inventor 2020 and earlier.

In the 2021 release of Inventor, we made improvements to the way we use the LibXL library in iLogic. We also made Internal (which means LibXL at this time) the default engine for Excel in iLogic. (In Inventor 2020 and earlier, the default was COM. But you could select LibXL by means of an environment variable.) 
LibXL has very good performance for reading and writing Excel data, but it is not full Excel. It doesn’t have the ability to recalculate cell values. If a cell is driven by a formula, it must be calculated in Excel. So if you change a value in one cell using LibXL, the value of another cell that references it will not update. To get it to update, you would have to open the file in Excel.

Unfortunately iLogic can’t detect this situation and warn you about it. We might be able to do that in a future version. But for now, if you need formula recalculation then you need to select the COM engine in the iLogic Configuration dialog:


This is described in the Inventor 2021 help.

[J-Camper]

Bump.

This is an important post for anyone using interactive Excel calls in 2021 Inventor.  It has already saved some troubleshooting headaches, so I want to make sure more people see this.

[Darkforce_the_ilogic_guy]

will the ilogic code still want if you only read and write ? we are using it for add custom properties to the file form an excel and it need the find the cell that have the same name as the Sheel metal Styre.

we also have an funktion that write to an excel an use it as an kind og log/trak there you where it inventor close before you are done.... so you can get the code to start there you left off 

[J-Camper]

From my understanding, @MjDeck correct me if I'm wrong, it only matters if you feed excel information and return a cell that calculates an equation based on what you fed in. 

If all you're doing is reading it doesn't need to be on COM, and if you are feeding info into excel but you don't need a calculation back then it doesn't need to be on COM. 

Only if you are using excel for calculations or outputs based on the inputs does it need to be on COM.

[MjDeck]

@J-Camper , that's right. You can use the default engine setting (Internal) to read and write data. You only need to use COM if your spreadsheet has cells that contain formulas (such as =A1+A2 or =SUM(A1:A10).