Electrical designer Paula Jones uses Microsoft Excel on a daily basis, and shares with us her method for bringing spreadsheets into her CAD program.

"The easiest way I've learned to bring spreadsheets into AutoCAD is to open an Excel file, highlight and Copy the spreadsheet; then go to a drawing in AutoCAD, click on the Edit menu > Paste Special > Paste Link as Microsoft Excel Worksheet, and click OK. What you highlight in Excel will become a block in AutoCAD. After you insert it, you can scale it up as you see fit. Usually, it's already to scale. This is the best way I know to show my information — it's quick and easy."


Notes from Cadalyst Tip Patrol: This has to be the easiest way to get your spreadsheet data into your AutoCAD file: copy the information, then paste it into AutoCAD. You can't edit the data in AutoCAD, but it retains the visual formatting that was established in Excel.