CADstudio DwgText

Export/import AutoCAD drawing texts to Excel or CSV (former Excellink)

DWGtext for AutoCAD

DWGtext is no longer supported, see e.g. XLSparam, TRANS, srxText

The DwgText plugin allows you to export/import texts and selected entity properties to/from your drawing. It supports AutoCAD 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013 (both 32/64-bit) including verticals such as AutoCAD Map 3D, Mechanical, Architecture...). Exported data can be modified in Excel (or in the text file) and then you can bring them back into the AutoCAD DWG drawing. You can use DwgText for creating BOMs, text schedules, or for batch editing of drawing texts and their visual properties.

The list of supported drawing objects - entities and properties:

• Text,
• Multiline text,
• Block reference (attributes, incl.dynamic),
• Multileader,
• Table,
• Attribute definition (attdef),
• Document properties (including custom properties).

You can export/import the data to/from the Microsoft Excel application (if installed), an Excel file or a text file (CSV, TSV, any delimiter).

The exported text objects can contain editable(!) properties like: text value (of course), entity type and name, layer, color, width, height, X/Y/Z coordinates (position), scale, rotation angle, dyn.block properties, attribute name, table cells, layout. These properties can be edited in Excel or in the text file (manually or in an automated way) and then updated in the original DWG drawing using the Import function. You can e.g. modify drawing text (strings), their positions or colors with an Excel macro, from a database system, possibly even from a sensor output, etc.

DwgText commands

DwgText adds the following commands:

• DwgTextExport,
• DwgTextImport,
• DwgTextSettings,
• DwgTextHelp,
• DwgTextInfo.

How does DwgText work

Export

According to the options preset in the Settings dialog, the DwgTextExport command exports selected entity properties to a Microsoft Excel sheet, an Excel file or a text file. A new row (line, record) will be created for each selected AutoCAD entity. Any entity is identified in the exported file by its entity handle and its drawing name - these will be used for future imports. There are some differencies between the export to Excel and to a text file. Each exported Excel row will contain AutoCAD entity identification in the first cell’s comment, while a text file has it as a row value (column). You can export entity handles and drawing names to Excel too, but the values are not important for the import functionality.

To avoid duplicity, DwgText uses the following prefixes for headers (column names) in the exported data:
ATTR_ for block attributes (can be suppressed in Setttings), DYN_ for dynamic block properties, CELL_ for table cells

Since version 1.6 you can select layers - only contents of these layers will be exported:

Import

The DwgTextImport command reads data from the current instance of an Excel sheet, from an Excel file or a text file and modifies the current drawing's entity properties according to the source data. Correct entity identification is based on the drawing name and entity handle values. So if you will need to re-import the data, don´t delete exported cells' comments or the text file values Handle and DwgName. Additionaly, for future imports from a text file, you need to export the "headers" with property names.

All Import options can be set in the settings dialog. Some visual properties cannot be changed through Import - you cannot change Layout of an entity, the block name, drawing name, entity handle, entity type and constant attributes in blocks.

Comments to some of the options

• the Excel application and Excel file options will not be available if MS Excel (any, 97-2013) is not installed on your system
• if you don't specify the Path for the output file, the drawing folder will be used for Export
• you can use the separator/delimiter character to create CSV (comma-separated) or TSV (tab-separated) text files (no escaping is performed)
• if you use the "Use UCS" option for export, you need to use it also for import (otherwise your texts will move)
• the "All supported" and "All these" options work on the whole drawing, including layouts
• the "New instance" option runs a new copy of Excel on each Export
• the "Use colors" option creates "nicer" tables but is much slower (green values in the output are the text strings)
• the "Detect start row" option writes data at the end of the existing sheet (first empty line past the end of the current sheet)
• right-click in the block references field to insert names of blocks in your current drawing (in alphabetical order)
• unless you uncheck the "Import only texts" option, no visual properties (position, color....) will be changed on Import
• for the Import function, no Excel sheet cell must be in the edit mode and the text file must not be in use
• be careful when disabling the attribute prefix option - attribute names may collide with some exported properties (e.g. your attribute tag must not be "Handle" or "Layer")
• the "Sort attributes" toggles between natural order (as in Insert) and alphabetic order of exported block attributes

Batch processing

The application itself doesn´t offer batch processing of multiplee drawings but it is easy to prepare an AutoCAD script that allows you to do that.

Let us say that we have three drawings: Drawing1, Drawing2, Drawing3 stored in the C:\Temp folder and we need to export their data. Use e.g. the Notepad program and create a text file script as follows:

_.OPEN "c:\Temp\Drawing1.dwg"
_.DwgTextExport
_.CLOSE
_.OPEN "c:\Temp\Drawing2.dwg"
_.DwgTextExport
_.CLOSE
_.OPEN "c:\Temp\Drawing3.dwg"
_.DwgTextExport
_.CLOSE

Don´t forget to put [Enter] after the last _.CLOSE command.

Save the script e.g. as "Export.scr". Then go to AutoCAD and load and run script via the Tools > Run script menu (_SCRIPT).

If you want to batch process the Import command, then do it in the same way but call the _.DwgTextImport command instead of the _.DwgTextExport.

Video:

Excel output examples

Versions

• V1.13 (11/2023)
  • support for AutoCAD 2024 (2013-2024)
• V1.12 (3/2022)
  • support for AutoCAD 2023 (2013-2023)
  • detects and formats numbers
  • allows to specify decimal delimiter (point, comma)
• V1.8.7 (4/2019)
  • support for AutoCAD 2020 (2013-2020)
  • progress-bars for import/export
• V1.8 (6/2018)
  • support for AutoCAD 2019 (2013-2019)
  • minor block export bug fixed
• V1.7 (6/2017)
  • support for AutoCAD 2018 (2013-2018)
  • new licensing mechanism
• V1.6 (5/2016)
  • support for AutoCAD 2017 (2013-2017)
  • layer option in settings
• V1.3 (4/2015)
  • support for AutoCAD 2016
• V1.2 (6/2014)
  • new option: Sort exported attributes by name
  • new option: optional prefixes ATTR_ and DYN_ for exported attributes
  • fixed logging option (enabling log was applied only to subsequent AutoCAD sessions)
• V1.0 (5/2014)
  • initial version for AutoCAD 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013 (a descendant to Excellink)

Buy/Order

DWGtext is no longer supported.

See also the application XLSparam - import/export and linking of DWG object parameters with XLS tables