Problem Description:
When I try to copy/paste results from the Post Processing tables into an Excel spreadsheet I get a message saying “Range too big” or “Selection is too large”.
When working with big models containing many elements and/or load cases the results tables can become quite large. The clipboard used by Windows to store copied data has a finite size, and if you try copying a table in STAAD whose sizes exceeds this limit an error message appears indicating the operation cannot be completed. To get around this, you can generate a report as a text document which can subsequently be imported into Excel. For example, suppose you wanted the Node Displacements table in an Excel spreadsheet--you could follow the steps below:
3. Click on Setup Report on the right hand side of the screen:
4. In the dialog box that appears, remove Job Info from the Selected window so it isn’t included in the report.
5. Change the Available menu from Input to Output, then move the Node Displacements item to the Selected window to include it in the report:
6. Click OK. You’ll see a preview of the report on screen.
7. Click on the File ribbon in the upper left-hand corner of the screen to access the backstage area.
8. Click on Report on the left-hand side of the screen, then choose the option Export to Text File:
9. Give the file a name and choose the folder to which it will be saved.
10. Click Save. This will generate a .txt file containing the node displacements data. Please note, this is identical to the data shown in the Node Displacements table in Post Processing (i.e. precisely what would be included by copying/pasting that table into a spreadsheet). It has no page breaks or formatting, allowing for a smooth import into Excel.
11. Now that the .txt file has been generated, you can go into Excel and use the From Text tool under the Data tab to bring it into the spreadsheet (be sure to specify a space as a delimiter so each value has its own cell.)