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bowen192
bowen192
Inspiring
September 14, 2011
Question

Does Excel like us?

  • September 14, 2011
  • 2 replies
  • 1134 views

Hello

Background

I am currently writing manuals for a company who produce lifting tools

They have a client that currently requires them to fill in an excel spreadsheet with a breakdown of the lifting tool and it's components.

I currently create part numbers (I'm in the process of starting to create a numbering system) and put all this information in to the lifeting tool manual/FM.

Question

Is there a way of copying/creating information from Excel in to FM so I don't have to type in everything manually?

Thanks

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    2 replies

    V
    Van Kurtz
    Inspiring
    September 14, 2011

    Bowen,

    1. Error's suggestion creates a PDF, which of course will have the formatting that you create for the spreadsheet within Excel. If you have a special formatting for your tables in FrameMaker, then this may not be what you want.

    2. A long time ago Arnis Gubins indicated that one could import an Excel spreadsheet BY COPY into a Frame document and FrameMaker converts it into a table. Note that the point is to import by copy, NOT reference.

    I just tried copying a spreadsheet by copy into an unstructured Frame file, and it works. I copied all the sheets of the spreadsheet. I suggest keeping the spreadsheet simple. It did not copy in an image embedded in the spreadsheet.

    I also tried copying by reference, and the result was the same as by copy except that it was a text inset, instead of editable content.

    Van

    bowen192
    bowen192Author
    Inspiring
    September 14, 2011

    Thanks for the replies.

    The copy function works very well.  Now I need to format it.

    Now I know you can edit and save ruling styles, but can you save a Table style so I could just apply this to the imported text?  Then I have all the information I need, in the format I want, in just a few clicks.

    Could be good this!

    V
    Van Kurtz
    Inspiring
    September 14, 2011
    Now I know you can edit and save ruling styles, but can you save a Table style so I could just apply this to the imported text?  Then I have all the information I need, in the format I want, in just a few clicks.

    Yes. You can save a table style created in the Table Designer. Then when you import a spreadsheet by copy, select the whole table and apply the style from the Table Designer. Depending upon the complexity of your formatting, you may not be able to record everything in a table style, such as formatting applied in customer rules and shading.

    Van

    Bob_Niland
    Community Expert
    Bob_NilandCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    September 14, 2011

    What we do, in a nutshell ...

    Open the XLS in LibreOffice (formerly OpenOffice) Calc.

    Select the cells of interest.

    File > Export as PDF

    (*) Selection

    Import the PDF into Frame.

    You can probably do something similar in Excel, perhaps send a print region to PDF, but Mr.Bill has improved Excel beyond repair.

    Resist the temptation to import as OLE.

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