Placing table from Excel

RE: Placing table from Excel

Andrew Bell — Mon, 13 May 2019 01:57:01 GMT

Thanks for your post but it is against an old discussion and does not really explain your problem in much detail. You might like to post a new question into the MicroStation Forum for us to assist with your specific issue. You might like to include example files or screen captures to assist.

RE: Placing table from Excel

Kelly Ogle — Fri, 10 May 2019 15:52:17 GMT

Thank you for posting this about MicroStation Connect.

I'm having trouble with OLE and with placing a table using Excel. Maddening to say the least.

RE: Placing table from Excel

Jon Summers — Tue, 29 Jan 2019 16:23:00 GMT

[quote userid="2476" url="~/products/microstation/f/microstation-forum/160641/placing-table-from-excel/503401"]Defect 937783 is currently scheduled for Update 14[/quote][quote userid="237582" url="~/products/microstation/f/microstation-forum/160641/placing-table-from-excel/503404"]it won't work for another year[/quote]

I think you're being a little pessimistic. The CONNECT Updates have arrived more or less as Bentley promised once a quarter.

If we see Update 12 arrives in February 2019, then Update 14 should be with us in October 2019. Let's hope that the defect has been rectified.

RE: Placing table from Excel

f.mandoki — Tue, 29 Jan 2019 14:47:37 GMT

@warren: i. e. it won't work for another year.

RE: Placing table from Excel

Carl Myhill — Tue, 29 Jan 2019 14:40:52 GMT

Hi Warren,

Defect 937783 is currently scheduled for Update 14.

RE: Placing table from Excel

Warren McLachlan — Tue, 29 Jan 2019 10:31:42 GMT

Hi Carl

Just following up on this - do you know if the defect you filed is going to be corrected soon?

RE: Placing table from Excel

Gregory Smith — Mon, 10 Dec 2018 19:19:27 GMT

OLE technology broke for us in the Nov Microsoft Updates. I'm not getting any traction from our IT, but have only posted in forums for now.
I have bitten the bullet and will go with TABLEs from Excel Data, without the SEED until DR is corrected.
SCALE PROPERTY is missing from TABLES however. I have no idea why, but can SCALE the TABLE after placing.

In general terms, talking about CE being "buggy" is not far from the truth, and I have logged a number of bugs that did not exist in earlier versions of CE, or V8. Frustrating for users as well as I am sure the developers who must be going around in circles by now.

FWIW. I'm U11 - for the Technology Preview of Excel exchange with Item Types - Works well so far and will become the long term replacement for TAGS I feel.

RE: Placing table from Excel

Warren McLachlan — Fri, 07 Sep 2018 06:42:31 GMT

Thanks, Carl

RE: Placing table from Excel

Carl Myhill — Tue, 04 Sep 2018 07:44:17 GMT

Bob OLE technology may be an alternative option to using Tables for bring Excel data into your designs, if you find issues with OLE or other areas please raise a new forum post or Service Request for investigation. Thanks.

RE: Placing table from Excel

Bob Rayner — Fri, 31 Aug 2018 20:28:07 GMT

Just curious Carl, how's the OLE technology in Connect with Excel? Nice to link Excel sheets right to Microstation sheets, we certainly waited a long time before it got "good" in v8i. Haven't tried it since I started using this buggy Connect (r10).

RE: Placing table from Excel

Carl Myhill — Fri, 31 Aug 2018 13:20:01 GMT

Sorry for the delay in responding further, I have been able to reproduce and Defect 937783 has been filed, it should respect the selected Table seeds formatting.

RE: Placing table from Excel

Duncan Macdonald — Wed, 22 Aug 2018 06:20:59 GMT

That makes sense. I've always used that functionality for door & room schedules where that is the only thing on the sheet so it's not been a problem.

RE: Placing table from Excel

Warren McLachlan — Wed, 22 Aug 2018 06:07:03 GMT

Hi Duncan

There are a few reasons we don't want to use paste special:

- The plotted output (PDF/ Paper) doesn't always come out looking exactly as it should - particularly the outer borders which are not always symmetrical in thickness. It's almost like the standard plotter drivers don't handle these objects well - especially at larger scales.

- The Excel line weights don't line up well with any standard plotted line weight, so the tables always look out of place on a drawing - we'd prefer to have the various borders assigned a Microstation colour so that we have more control.

- There's a Place Table tool that should be able to do this. If this feedback can help improve the tool, it'll be good for posterity.

RE: Placing table from Excel

Warren McLachlan — Wed, 22 Aug 2018 05:52:40 GMT

I've tested this out with a table seed I created for the same data in OpenRoads Designer Update 4. This is the result - the table on the left is the table seed placed normally, the table on the right is the table seed placed with Excel data:

RE: Placing table from Excel

Warren McLachlan — Wed, 22 Aug 2018 05:42:38 GMT

Hi Carl

Thanks for the response. I've created a different query about this in the past:

https://communities.bentley.com/products/microstation/f/microstation-forum/138252/using-table-seeds-with-excel-data

The problem that I found is that the table seeds work brilliantly, but not when importing Excel data to populate the table seed. The screenshots in the above post show what happens. Could it be because I have several different text styles in the same Excel data/ table seed?

RE: Placing table from Excel

Carl Myhill — Fri, 17 Aug 2018 14:36:13 GMT

Having Selected the Place Table tool, In the Tool Settings it is possible to select a predefined Text Style to use, this Text Style will then be used for the text.

https://communities.bentley.com/products/microstation/w/microstation__wiki/23888/how-to-control-the-size-of-initial-table-placement

If you have a Table Seed defined with all the formatting required this can also be selected in the Tool Settings, note this will override the Text Style setting if used. Thus if placing Tables of a standard format you may want to consider creating Table Seeds.

https://communities.bentley.com/products/microstation/w/microstation__wiki/32363/how-to-create-table-seed-that-can-be-placed-as-a-template-into-any-design

As you have found you can change the height individually by double clicking in each cell and changing the height in the Text Editor. Alternatively if you right click on the Table itself ( Not a specific cell ) and select Properties, you can set the Text Style to be used.

RE: Placing table from Excel

Ian Lapper — Fri, 17 Aug 2018 12:47:05 GMT

Sorry its Cntl T

RE: Placing table from Excel

Ian Lapper — Fri, 17 Aug 2018 12:13:14 GMT

Just a thought.. see if the text is linked to Annotation Scale.. Try using the Annotation scale ie 1:100. If you do not know where this is. Press Cntl C and look for Drawing Scale

RE: Placing table from Excel

Warren McLachlan — Fri, 17 Aug 2018 12:03:52 GMT

I realised that the text height in the text field was incredibly small. Increasing it to a proper size actually worked, but it's going to be a pain if we have to manually edit all the cells. It looks like the Place Table tool doesn't like text below a certain size...

RE: Placing table from Excel

Warren McLachlan — Fri, 17 Aug 2018 11:59:30 GMT

Hi Ian

I'm importing the data directly from an Excel spreadsheet, not from a report.

If I edit the text fields, it looks like there is a placeholder for the text that doesn't display:

RE: Placing table from Excel

Ian Lapper — Fri, 17 Aug 2018 11:54:45 GMT

Warren

if you preview the table in MS (within the reports tool) do you see the populated data!. maybe the formatting isn't correct and its not actually doing anything.

RE: Placing table from Excel

Duncan Macdonald — Fri, 17 Aug 2018 11:30:14 GMT

Is there any reason why you wouldn't just use paste special and link the Excel? That will keep the formatting.