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Figure 27-9: The drawing with a rendered view in one viewport.

Pasting, Linking, and Embedding Objects

To maximize the data that you have in your drawing and other documents, you can insert objects from other applications into your drawing. For example, you may have a description of your drawing in a word-processing application or a table in a spreadsheet. You can use the Windows Clipboard to share data between applications.

Cross- In Chapter 18, I explain how to use the Windows Clipboard to copy and move material from Reference one drawing to another. Chapter 13 includes a discussion of several techniques for importing

text into your drawing.

You can insert data (text or images) that was created with other applications into a drawing in three ways:

Embed the object if you want to be able to return to the source application to edit the object. When you double-click the object, the source application opens so that you can edit the object.

Paste the object when you don’t need any connection with the source application.

Link the object when you want to retain a permanent link to the source file so that when the source file is changed, the change is updated in your drawing.

You can use the Clipboard to move material from one application to another and take advantage of the special options for pasting, linking, and embedding data. Linking and embedding are often referred to as Object Linking and Embedding, or OLE. You can also use drag-and-drop between applications.

The instructions that follow assume that the source application (the application that contains the data that you want to insert) is also a Windows application.

Embedding objects into a drawing

You have three ways to embed data from other applications. Each method has its advantages and disadvantages.

906 Part V Organizing and Managing Drawings

Here’s the first way:

1.From your drawing, choose Insert OLE Object to open the Insert Object dialog box, as shown in Figure 27-10. This starts the INSERTOBJ command. (The entries listed in this dialog box depend on the applications that you have installed on your computer.)

2.If you want to create a new file in the other application, choose Create New. Choose the application that you want to use from the Object Type list, and click OK. The other application opens, so that you can create the new data. When you’re done, choose

File Update from the other application’s menu. (This menu item can vary, depending on the application.) Click the Close button at the top-right corner of the application to close it and return to your drawing. If the OLE Properties dialog box appears, specify how you want the object to appear, and click OK. The new file is inserted.

Figure 27-10: The Insert Object dialog box.

3.If you want to choose an existing file, choose Create from File. Click Browse to find the file. Click Open. You return to the Insert Object file, where you can choose Link to link the data (described in the next section of this chapter). Choose OK. The file appears

at the top-left corner of your screen with handles that you can use to move and/or resize the object.

Here’s the second way:

1.Open the source application, select the data, and copy it to the Clipboard. (Click Copy on the Standard toolbar or choose Edit Copy.) Leave the source application open.

2.If your drawing is open, switch to it by choosing its button on the task bar. Otherwise, open it.

3.In your drawing, choose Edit Paste Special.

4.In the Paste Special dialog box, choose the first option, which lets you embed the object as an object of the source application. Click OK.

5.You can now close the other application.

The third way to insert data is to use drag-and-drop:

1.If your drawing is not open, open it. Open the drawing where you want to embed the data.

2.Open the source application and select the data.

3.Press Ctrl and click the selected data again, holding down the mouse button.

4.Drag the data to the AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT button on the Windows task bar and continue to hold down the mouse button until your drawing displays.

5.Drag the data to the desired location in your drawing.

Using INSERTOBJ gives you the option of creating a new file on the spot in the other application. You don’t have to keep the other application open when you return to your drawing. Note that you cannot create a link if you’re creating a new file.

Using the Clipboard enables you to insert part of a file — for example, part of a spreadsheet — which can be a great advantage. You need to keep the other application open until you paste the object into your drawing.

You can control the size of text and the plot quality of OLE objects. Choose Tools Options and click the Plot and Publish tab, where you can set the default OLE plot quality. To change the plot quality, select the OLE object and change the quality in the Plot Quality item of the Properties palette. Text is automatically scaled to approximate the size in the original application. To change the text size, select the OLE object and right-click. Choose OLE Text Size. In the OLE Text Size dialog box, you can change the text size by entering a new number in the Text Height text box. Click OK.

OLE objects have a few limitations:

If they’re contained in a block or an external reference, they may not be displayed or plotted.

In certain cases, OLE objects can be printed out only on Windows system printers. You can usually configure your plotter to be the system printer.

OLE objects don’t rotate with your drawing when you use a PLOT rotation. To work around this, you can use the system printer’s Landscape setting.

Tip If you don’t mind a few steps, you can sometimes get good results importing large Excel spreadsheets by way of Microsoft Word, as follows: In Excel, use Save As to save the spreadsheet in Text (Tab delimited) format. Insert the file into Word (choose Text Files from the Open dialog box’s Files of Type drop-down list). Select the entire file and choose Table Convert Text to Table. Change the Page Setup to accommodate the large size of the table, using a custom paper size. Format the table if you want. Copy it to the Clipboard. In your drawing, choose Paste on the Standard toolbar.

Using Paste Special

When you copy data to the Clipboard, it’s stored in several formats, depending on the type of data. You can then choose which format you want to use when you paste it into your drawing, using the PASTESPEC command. Choosing the right format can make a big difference, by enabling you to edit the data in your drawing as you wish.

Pasting data into your drawing

To paste data using PASTESPEC, open the source application, select the data, and copy it to the Clipboard. (Click Copy on the Standard toolbar or choose Edit Copy.) Leave the source application open.

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If your drawing is open, choose its button on the task bar. If not, open it. In your drawing, choose Edit Paste Special. This opens the Paste Special dialog box, shown in Figure 27-11. In this figure, you see the options that are available when you paste in a range of cells from a spreadsheet.

Figure 27-11: The Paste Special dialog box after copying spreadsheet data to the Clipboard.

The choices that you see in the As box of the Paste Special dialog box depend on the type of data that you copied. In most cases, you can paste as an object of the source application, as a picture (metafile), as a bitmap, and as text. Table 27-3 describes the characteristics of the choices that are available in the example in Figure 27-11.

The best choice depends on the type of data that you’re pasting. For a spreadsheet, the Picture, Bitmap, and Image Entity choices aren’t useful, but they would be quite appropriate if you were pasting in an image.

Converting objects

Some pasted objects can be converted to other types of objects. Try right-clicking anywhere on the object that was pasted. If you get a menu, choose an object type and then choose Convert Picture Object (the menu item varies with the type of object) to open the Convert dialog box, as shown in Figure 27-12. Sometimes no choices are available other than the current image type.

Figure 27-12: Sometimes you can convert one object type into another with the Convert dialog box. Here you can convert a Paintbrush object to a Picture object.

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Figure 27-13: Placing part of a drawing on a PowerPoint slide.

Inserting AutoCAD as an ActiveX Component

into PowerPoint

When you insert or paste AutoCAD objects into another document, such as a Word document or PowerPoint presentation, the objects are static images. What if you could display your AutoCAD drawing dynamically, with zooming and panning? You could then show your intended audience all of the detail you want.

It turns out that you can. You can use the DWF format (covered in more detail in Chapter 28) and insert it into any version of Word, Excel, or PowerPoint that supports ActiveX components. Viewers need the free Autodesk DWF Viewer, which they can download at www.autodesk.com/ expressviewer. Here are instructions for PowerPoint:

1.Create the DWF file. (See Chapter 28 for instructions.)

2.In PowerPoint, choose a slide layout that gives you room for the DWF file.

3.Choose Insert Object.

4.Click Create New and then choose Autodesk DWF Viewer Control. Click OK. You see a box with handles on your slide.

5.If you want, resize or move the box. (If you deselect the box, it disappears. Click inside the box to select it again.)

6.Right-click the box and choose Autodesk DWF Viewer Control Objects Properties.

7.In the Autodesk DWF Viewer Control Properties dialog box, on the SourcePath tab, type the path to the DWF file or click browse to browse to the file.

8.In your PowerPoint presentation, click the Slide Show View button to enter Slide Show view. You can now pan, zoom, turn layers on and off, print, and so on from within your presentation.

Linking data

You can insert data from a spreadsheet or text document and maintain a link to the original file, so that if the original file changes, the inserted data is updated as well, very similar to xrefs. For example, you could use this feature to place a schedule of doors and windows in an architectural drawing or a bill of materials in a mechanical drawing. You have two ways to link data. First, you can link data using INSERTOBJ, as described earlier in this chapter. Second, you can use the Clipboard, by following these steps:

1.Open the source application, select the data, and copy it to the Clipboard. (Click Copy on the Standard toolbar or choose Edit Copy.)

2.If your drawing is open, choose its button on the task bar. If not, open it.

3.In your drawing, choose Edit Paste Special.

4.In the Paste Special dialog box, choose Paste Link. Click OK.

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When you create a link, you don’t have all of the format options that you do when you simply paste. You can create a link in the source application’s format only.

When you open a drawing containing a link, a message appears, asking whether you want to update the links. In this way, you can update the links whenever you open the drawing. You can manage links by choosing Edit OLE Links, to open the Links dialog box, as shown in Figure 27-14.

Figure 27-14: Use the Links dialog box to manage your links.

The Links dialog box enables you to manually update the links at any time by choosing Update Now. You may want to do this if you know that someone has changed the source of the link during your drawing session. You can also break the link, open the source, or change the source in this dialog box.

Remember that if you give a drawing to someone else, you also need to include any attached images or embedded objects. If the person does not have the source application for an embedded object, you can paste it in as an image.

To do the following exercise, you need a spreadsheet application. I use Microsoft Excel in this exercise, but you can use another spreadsheet if you prefer.

STEPS: Pasting, Linking, and Embedding Objects

1.Open ab27-c.dwg from the CD-ROM.

2.Save the file as ab27-04.dwg in your AutoCAD Bible folder.

3.Choose Insert OLE Object. Choose Create New and choose your worksheet application from the list. Click OK. Your worksheet program opens.

4.Create the worksheet shown in Figure 27-15. Adjust the width of the columns to fit the data.

5.In the spreadsheet application, choose File Update and then choose File Exit. The worksheet appears in the drawing, as shown in Figure 27-16.

Figure 27-15: Create this worksheet to insert into your AutoCAD drawing.

Figure 27-16: The spreadsheet inserted into the drawing.

6.Open your spreadsheet application and open ab27-c.xls from the CD-ROM. Select the data in the last three columns, as shown in Figure 27-17. Click Copy on the spreadsheet’s Standard toolbar.

Figure 27-17: Selecting part of a file to insert into your drawing.

7.Leave your spreadsheet open and click the AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT button on the Windows task bar. Choose Edit Paste Special. Although you could insert this as an Excel Worksheet (or object from your spreadsheet application), to try another method, choose AutoCAD (LT) Entities and click OK. Pick an insertion point near the right of the existing OLE object.

8.The spreadsheet is inserted as a table object, but is very small. Click outside the table to close the MText Editor. Zoom in on the table. Click the lower-right corner of the table and drag its handle down and to the right until the table is the same height as the spreadsheet to its left.

9.Click inside the upper-left cell, press Shift, and click inside the lower-right cell. Choose Properties on the Standard toolbar. In the Properties palette, change the Text Height to .6800. Change the Text Style to WMF-Arial0. (This text style was created when you imported the spreadsheet, to match the original text in the spreadsheet.) Change the Alignment to Middle Center.