Can extracted, AutoCad attributes, be changed in Excel?

Hi,

I've got a question on attribute extraction. Let's
say I have a fire alarm schematic which contains
several hundred digital addresses. I understand that
I can, in AutoCad, extract these addresses to a spreadsheet,
such as Excel. My question is, if I change a number of
one or several of these addresses within the spreadsheet,
will this change show in the schematic? If not, is there a program
that will allow me to accomplish this?

TIA,

Dennis

 

When you find it please post it. I am unaware of any way to do what you want
to do.
Have you tried an import on the changed data?
If you could do an HTML link that would change the numbers. I do not know
how sorry. Seems to me there should be a data base some where in the Acad
file you could modify instead. I used to do that with a program that used
Access for its storage of data.
Make backups so you do not hose it...

 

I did some research. There is a way to bring attribute data into
a spread sheet, like Excel, but the data cannot be changed within Excel, and
have it mirrored back to the drawing. On the otherhand, Autocad has
a data base program built in . It requires learning a little bit
of the SQL programming language. It is then possible to build a data base
of data in an Autocad drawing. This data can be inserted into a spreadsheet
like Excel. Any change to the data, within the spreadsheet will change the
same data in the drawing. This is an advanced topic, and I'll have to
look into it more before I can apply it. I found this info in a manual
put out by Autocad Press. It is titled Using AutoCad 2004, Advanced, author
Ralph Grabowski.ISBN: 1-4018-5058-8.

 

Do some research on SQL. I know in Access there are tables that when the
text is modified it is only in that table. You will need to find the master
table. Or at least that is what we did with Access. After all the same folks
probably wrote the both programs

 

2004, indeed! I am still using R14 (and I think I WON"T upgrade in the
future).

--
Dimitris Tzortzakakis,Iraklion Crete,Greece
Analogue technology rules-digital sucks
http://www.patriko-kreta.com
dimtzort AT otenet DOT gr the return adress is corrupted
Warning:all offending emails will be deleted, and the offender/spammer
will be put on my personal "black list".

 

We still use R14 as well but we've purchased all the upgrades as
they've come out, just haven't installed them.

But recently we've had to start using 2004 due to some arch desktop
objects showing up in dwg's that crash r14 (even with obj enabler
installed).


The only things about 2000 thru 2004 I hate are:

1. the new plotting interface (To complex for hvac/electrical/plumbing
design)

2. the way acad 2000 thru 2004 treats polyline thicknesses. IE. if I
have a plotter.ctb file that had the color red set for a thickness .25
then I create a zero thickness polyline in the color red it will be
much much thinner than the default .25. Also polyline thicknesses
don't plot as thick as they did in r14.

 

I like 2004, would never go back to 14, just too cumbersome.


-Dennis

 

after my lisp routines and quick commands are loaded in 2004 I find no
difference in 2004 except in plotting and I hate the plotting in all
the 2000's series acad.

 

Dennis,

When I was doing a lot of my own AutoCAD work, I automated repetative
steps by using QBasic to write script files for batch attribute editing
and AutoLISP routines to insert series of blocks with sequentially
numbered attributes. It should be possible to take the spreadsheet with
the extracted addresses, add another column with the new addresses, save
it to text format, then have a QBasic program read each line and write
a -attedit command to perform global editing as follows. It could be
done with VBA in Excel, I just never took the time to convert my code.
This will work only if two conditions are met: the digital addresses are
the same attribute in a unique block and no digital addresses are
duplicated.

-ATTEDIT
N
Y
BLOCKNAME
ATTRIBUTE_TAG
OLD_ADDRESS
W 1ST_CORNER 2ND_CORNER
<blank line>
OLD_ADDRESS
NEW_ADDRESS_WITH_PREFIX

This will take a few minutes to run. The prefix makes sure that, in case
any new address matches an old address, it will not be selected. I usually
use &&, since it doesn't mean anything to AutoCAD text. The final command
removes the prefixes from all of the addresses.

-ATTEDIT
N
Y
BLOCKNAME
ATTRIBUTE_TAG
*
W 1ST_CORNER 2ND_CORNER
<blank line>
&&
<blank line>

Hope this helps,

Mike

 

Try http://www.caddepot.com/ search for Excel. I found lots of shareware
programs to do what you are talking about for all different flavors of
Autocad. Here is the description for one of them:
************************************************************
Description:
EXCELLINK 2000 is an ARX application for AutoCAD 2000/2000i/2002 (Map, MDT,
ADT). It allows to bi-directionally hot link attribute and block data
between an AutoCAD drawing and an Excel 97/2000/XP sheet. For room
schedules, BOMs, lists, computed attributes, etc.

Version: 1.18
File Size: 305kb
Registration: Shareware ($99.00US to register)
Platform: AutoCAD 2000, 2000i, 2002, MTD6, ADT3
Author Email:
Author Website: www.cadstudio.cz/excellink
Admin | 4/15/2002 | 1153 Downloads | Rate it!
**************************************************************
Good luck

 

Sure. Excel links have always been hot-link capable.
First with DDE, than OLE.

The remaining problem is how the specify the link from excel to autocad.
The only reliable way is to change an text or attrib textvalue. This is
the default, every app uses.

Parametric modeling would require a geometrical change also
(length, angle, blockname, ...). This needs custom programming, but has
also been done.

 

thank you one and all for the help, and input.

I've come up with several solutions that will work for me,
(and my boss).

Dennis