Re: Import/Link Excel to Microstation

If you don't want to buy addons then you can never solve your excel to cad problem with excel and even if you link excel it wont auto update automatically.

If you have text standards restrictions then make your excel file a csv then use the table macro provided by bentley already in microstation.

This will create a text table from a csv file and will create the table with lines and text  from a parameter settings box using only microstation native elements ie lines and text

this way will always work because it doen't get font or text size from excel but from microstation..

And its FREE!

Once you've done it a few times its pretty easy... I used to copy paste the dialog and the path to the csv file  into the dgn that way it was easy to keep the table current and exactly the same when updateing was required.. just reconstruct the table via the macro via the csv..

It might be old school but it works.. once you have a work instruction set up then everybody can follow the instruction and no addons required...it even still works in V8i

Probably the easiest way to understand the relationship is to think Leroy text sizes (showing my age here):

120 Leroy (.120") = 12 point which would approximate .125"

200 Leroy (.200") = 20 point which would approximate .1875" (this rounds to .19" so you could use 19 point)

240 Leroy (.240") = 24 point which would approximate .250" (optionally use 25 point)

... and so on.

But I'll reiterate what others have said.  Fonts are not created equal, so depending on the font, some text will be larger than others.  Even the old MicroStation fonts were subject to variations in size.  Font 1 won't be the same height as Font 20 or Font 7 when placed at any given text height.

One thing I have found puzzling is the relationship of height to width with respect to columns and rows in Excel.

When I create a chart, I like to create a little white space around the chart (kind of like the white border outside the  printed area of a photograph).  If the height of the white rows are set to 5, to get the same thickness on the white columns, I have to set the column width to .5.  In other words, a square cell would have to have row and column settings where the value of the row height is 10 times the value of the column width.  What's with that.  This is of course an Excel thing - nothing to do with MicroStation.

Try this:

krdeason.dyndns.org/msexporter

I searched this topic because I'm trying to put together a workflow for my company on how to best link excel data into microstation V8 XM.  Everyone has a different method and it has been getting is into trouble.  We have quantity tables in Excel that we link to the quantity sheet files in microstation.  We need to have a specific font, size, spacing, etc in microstation, so I don't know if the 'by size' option will work.  Can someone tell me or lead me to a link for this process?  Thanks!

Yes I meant row height.

One of the Text guys can probably describe this better than me, but here goes.

We do map the text point size to the equaliant inch, but not all fonts are created equal.  I used the row height in my example becasue that is something you can snap to.  To see what I mean create a word document and write the letter H using four different fonts at any point (but all the same point) .  Notice how none of them are the same size. 

HTH,

~john.

When you say gridlines I assume you mean row height.  You are correct, when I set the row height to 72 I get a pasted cell height of 1 inch when placed at a scale of 1 in Microstation.  This is regardless of the size of the text within the cells.  Why would the function work this way?  Most engineering drawings require a standard text height.  Shouldn't there be some control as to what height the text is when using this method rather than the row height?

Marc

When pasting linked elements to MicroStation and using the size method, MicroStation uses a point to inch convertion.  72 point should measure 1 inch, I think this measurment can vary from font to font since they do not have to uniform but if you make make your gridlines 72 point height this will measure 1 inch when pasting using size.

Check out this wiki on it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_(typography)

HTH,
~john.

I am trying to link an Excel spreadsheet to a Microstation file, using the paste special command to display the cells in a design file.  Question is; What controls the size of the spreadsheet when pasting into Microstation?  If I select by size and use the scale field how does this relate to the font size in Excel?

Marc