yang686526

import descriptions from excel?
i have been using solidworks for about three months. the engineer who has been helping me taught me to follow our company standards from the beginning, so i've included a description every time i've saved a part. unfortunately, not everyone has done that in the past, and we have thousands of parts that don't have descriptions.
we are using ipa, an animation program, to make our parts manuals, and if the description is in the solidworks file, it will be displayed in the ipa graphic. i'd rather not have to do this one at a time, though.
all of our part numbers have their associated descriptions in our pdm system, and i could easily export that data into an excel spreadsheet. i'm looking for a way to import that data into solidworks.
does anyone have a macro that would import this type of data from an excel file? or, maybe someone has a different idea to accomplish what i need?
audra
audra merritt
audra,
i do not have no solution for your problem but i have a thought.
if i recieve files from other companies i use the solidworkstaskscheduler for inserting customproperties fields in those files. i use these custom properties for information in my drawings.
maybe you can try to update your description field directly from your pdm system (i 'don't know that because i'm not using pdm)
i'm thinking you better get in touch with your solidworks supplier for an answer on this subject because it's very specific.
with regards
joop
hi joop,
i contacted them, and they didn't know of a way to do it. they suggested that someone may have written a macro to do this, and that i ask around for that.
i'll be taking an advanced course in a couple of weeks, so maybe i will get some answers there.
thanks,
audra
audra merritt
i have cobbled together a macro that can do this, but it is tailored to our operations. it will not batch process files, but will modify or delete properties one at a time without right-clicking in windows explorer and you do not need to open up sw. let me know if you'd like to try it out on a file or two and see if it will help. i can't guarantee that it will work on your computer, but it works pretty well on mine.
hi thinkn3d,
when you say it will modify or delete properties one at a time without right-clicking in windows explorer, does that mean that i would have to type in each description manually?
thanks for your time,
audra
audra merritt
the way that it's currently written, you'd still have to locate each solidworks file individually and then copy and paste the description from your spreadsheet into an input box. it would take a lot of additional work to write it to automatically add the descriptions to many files at once. also, error checking becomes an issue such as missing directories, missing files, an item number with no part or assembly associated, on and on and on. so you still will have some work to do.
i'd appreciate being able to look at it. can you email it to me? audra at doc-u-motion dot com.
audra merritt
i found out today that the description field makes use of windows technology, and changing it can be done without involving solidworks. one of our programmers is going to write a vb script that will make the changes from the excel file.
if you look at any file in windows explorer, you can right-click and go to properties you can see what i'm talking about. on the custom tab, you can enter description (or whatever field you want) for name and the text you want for value. it does not work on read-only files, though.
if you have any questions about it, let me know, and i'll try to help.
have a great week,
audra
audra merritt
hi,
just have a question. what is ipa i understand its some sort of animation program. what can you do with it. where can i get it? can i download it from somwhere?
thanks
agulban
hi agulban,
ipa stands for interactive product animator. you can use it to create interactive parts lists, animations of procedures, sales demos, etc. there's a 30-day trial you can download. my contact is lisa bronson--you can reach her at
hth,