Previously I talked about Linking Excel Spreadsheets to AutoCAD Tables but this time I am going to show you an even simpler way to get Excel data into an AutoCAD table.

STEP 1:
In Excel select a range of cells and copy them to clipboard.

STEP 2:
In AutoCAD type TABLESTYLE on the commandline and set a table style current. Hit OK to close the Table Style dialog box.

Then click on the “Edit” pull-down menu in AutoCAD and select “Paste Special…” In the Paste Special dialog box, select the “Paste Link” radio-button. Then in the white box, select “AutoCAD Entities”.

Finally click to insert the top-left corner of the table into your drawing. You will need to adjust/format the table to your liking. Remember, the table cells will be locked so your linked data stays protected, but you can still change the “look” of the cells and borders by right-clicking. For example, to change the format of a row/column of cells in the table, click in the first cell in the row/column, hold down the SHIFT key and click in the last cell in the row/column. Right-click and select: Cell Style –> [Data, Header, or Title]

One thing I noticed with my experiment pasting Excel data into a linked AutoCAD table is that the data did not line up in the cells correctly (see following picture).

But once I clicked the downward arrow grip in the lower-left corner of the table and stretched it down, the data lined up correctly.

Finally, if you type DATALINK in the command line, you will notice data links are automatically created (Excel Data Link 1, Excel Data Link 2, etc.).

This is a very lazy easy way to link Excel data into AutoCAD tables!