CAD tip # 6606:

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CAD

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How to create AutoCAD geometry from Excel?

If you need to automatically "generate" AutoCAD entities (lines, arcs, polylines, splines, blocks, texts, 3D objects...) from X-Y-Z coordinates in an Excel spreadsheet, you don't need any LISP or VBA macros - you can just use AutoCAD script files.

Scripts are text files with sequences of AutoCAD commands - the same as if they were typed in manually on the AutoCAD command line.

Let's say we have a simple Excel table with XY coordinates for a spline curve:

Excel table

In Excel, save (export) this table to a CSV file (comma-separated values format), preferably without the "A" column (point numbers) and without the header - for large tables you can first select and copy/paste the contents of the coordinate-cells to a blank sheet and export this new sheet.

Open this .CSV file in notepad and add "SPLINE" as the first line (similarly, you can use PLINE e.g. to draw a graph). Make sure there are no surplus space characters anywhere. You should get something like:

Notepad data

Please note that on some localizations with comma as decimal separator you would need to perfom a replacement: ","¨"." and ";"¨",".

Save the resulting file to something.scr. Now just drag and drop this SCR file into your AutoCAD drawing window (or use the SCRIPT command). AutoCAD will draw the spline - just finish the command execution with specifying the missing spline tangents (just press Enter twice). This is the resulting spline curve:

AutoCAD spline

For more advanced import of coordinate geometry from Excel see XLS2Curve.

ACADACLT

*CAD

30.3.2009 116013× FAQ

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applies to: AutoCAD · AutoCAD LT ·

See also:
Tip 14059:	Import coordinates from CSV files into Fusion profiles.
Tip 12926:	How to import point coordinates from Excel to AutoCAD?
Tip 12837:	RenameCSV - rename layers, blocks, layouts, views, linetypes using Excel tables
Tip 10709:	How to create a profile from imported XYZ points in Fusion 360?
Tip 3229:	How to replace texts in many AutoCAD drawings? (regular expressions)

Selected tip: After creating of new Profile, EN commands (_line e.g.) in old profile cause crash of AutoCAD.

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