Linking Dimensions and Parametric values into Excel
Being able to link measurement values to Microsoft Excel has always been a challenge for AutoCAD users. Earlier versions of AutoCAD (2005, 2006, and 2007) require users to import the excel file as an OLE object. Those OLE objects were nothing more than an Image with a link that opens the xls file with Microsoft Excel by double clicking the image.
AutoCAD 2008 was the first release to include Data Links, a linking mechanism which relies on AutoCAD's table feature. AutoCAD tables favors Excel in many ways, and like excel, these tables can leverage just about any object and/or file geometry into its cells while minimizing manual input from the users.
In the following example, we are going to create a Data Link using an existing excel file; Create a AutoCAD Table using the Data Link; Extract dimension values into the AutoCAD Table; and have AutoCAD write the values to the excel file.