Like V8i? You’ll Love CONNECT – Tables in the MicroStation CONNECT Edition

You like MicroStation V8i, but…

Placing tabular annotations is a frequent need that is encountered within a variety of disciplines. In MicroStation V8i there were many ways to accomplish this including:

• Drawing a table manually with lines and text – This is a manual process, requiring each line and piece of text composing the table to be placed manually.
• The MicroStation Basic “Table” macro – The “table” was created automatically using individual lines and pieces text, with the text being imported from an external text file. Row and column sizing were set manually when the table was placed, often requiring many iterations to get the table to appear in the desired fashion. Editing was not user-friendly, and this method did not provide for updating the data.
• Paste Special (i.e. a linked or embedded Microsoft Excel Worksheet) – A popular method of bringing tabular data into MicroStation, this required a file from an outside application such as Microsoft Excel. The resulting table was not native to MicroStation, with editing performed using the original parent application (Excel).
• Insert an object (i.e. Microsoft Excel Worksheet) – Similar to Paste Special, this allowed an empty table to be placed, with the table still linked to an outside application (Excel).

And while it was possible to use any of these methods, they could be cumbersome, difficult to edit, and may not be native to the MicroStation design environment.

You’ll love the MicroStation CONNECT Edition because…

The MicroStation CONNECT Edition offers a new Table tool that may be used to place a tabular data structure containing annotations such as a bill of materials, schedule or sheet index. It is native to MicroStation, behaving very similar to Microsoft Excel.

The new MicroStation CONNECT Edition Place Table tool offers the following enhancements:

• A Table is a single element (not composed of individual lines and text).
• A contextual ribbon tab housing an extensive set of tools used to edit a table and the data it contains.
• Support for Title and Header rows.
• Table data may be input manually, populated using a report definition, or through an external file with the latter 2 providing the ability to link the table to its data source for updating.
• Easily modified using the table tools.
• Table Seeds allow a new table to be placed based upon an existing standard.

Take a new MicroStation CONNECT Edition Table element for a test drive today!

If you’re interested in speaking with a Bentley expert about making the move to MicroStation CONNECT Edition, please complete this form to have someone contact you to provide advice and assistance.

You may also find these blog articles useful:

Splitting Tables

Creating Templates for Tables