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Microsoft Office
Importer
Import spreadsheet and word processing data into
MicroStation with perfect formatting!
Version 4.1
Axiom
1805 Drew Street
Clearwater, Florida 33765
1-727-442-7774 voice
1-727-442-8344 fax
Info@AxiomInt.com
www.AxiomInt.com
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This software and manual are provided as is without warranty of any kind, either
expressed or implied, including, but not limited to the implied warranties of
merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. The entire risk as to the quality and
performance of this program is with you. You are advised to test the program thoroughly
before you rely on it. Should the program prove defective, you (and not the seller nor
manufacturer) assume the entire cost of all necessary servicing, repair or correction. Any
liability of seller or manufacturer of this software will be limited exclusively to product
replacement or refund of the purchase price. Venue for the resolution of any dispute
related to the software described herein shall be Pinellas County, Florida, USA.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Chapter 2 Installation----------------------------------------------------------------------11
Before You Install ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11
Typical Installation from CD --------------------------------------------------------------------- 11
Congratulations------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 17
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Table of Contents
Help | About...--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 54
Category --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 54
Currently active settings file name--------------------------------------------------------------- 54
Match ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 55
Information field ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 55
<OK> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 55
<Cancel> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 56
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Table of Contents
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Chapter 1 Overview
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Eliminating the need for manual entry or manipulation of text in MicroStation that
exists in Microsoft Office documents.
Import and link Excel charts into your MicroStation design files.
Maintaining formats like italics, bold and underline with superior appearance.
Support for Unicode fonts in Excel, allowing you to import text with fonts such as
Greek, Chinese, Japanese and Arabic into your design files.
Microsoft Office Importer uses 92% less disk space than trying to use native
MicroStation commands to import the same text.
Ability to use the <Browse> button to locate a missing source file and change a link
to point to the source file at a new location.
Option to unlink with the ability to restore the link later if needed.
Providing many settings and pasting options that allow you the freedom to make a
paste look exactly as you want.
Microsoft Office Importer uses RTF (Rich Text Formatdata from the clipboard. Any
word processor or spreadsheet software that copies information to the clipboard in RTF
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format can theoretically work with Microsoft Office Importer although it was specifically
built and optimized for Microsofts Excel, Access and Word applications.
Microsoft Office Importer can be used with all kinds of data such as Equipment
Schedules, Bill of Materials, Tabular Data, Room Finish, Conduit/Panel/Motor Schedules
to name just a few.
Microsoft Office Importer is compatible with MicroStation SE and J in 2000 and XP. It
supports Microsoft Office 97, 2000 and 2003..
Chapter 2 Installation
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A license file on floppy disk for the product(s) you are about to install.
Please shut down all MicroStation sessions on your computer before continuing.
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3. Click the <OK> button and the first installation dialog box (below) will appear.
6. These instructions will describe only the Typical installation path. Choose
Typical and click <Next>.
Chapter 2 Installation
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7. Choose the license file for this installation. Place the floppy disk that came with this
installation CD into your floppy drive now.
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9. Highlight the version of MicroStation you want to associate the Axiom tools with and
click <Next>.
Since this is a Typical installation, all programs for which an Axiom license was
found will already be checked-on to be installed. Other items that are also
automatically checked-on for installation are the product Users Guides, individual
product sample files and Axioms MicroStation pull-down menu.
Chapter 2 Installation
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If you accept the license and click <Next>, the installation will begin. You can click
<Cancel> at any time to abort the installation.
Chapter 2 Installation
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13. This is the final dialog box. It shows that the installation is complete. By default the
View Readme.pdf option is toggled on and will display the Readme.pdf document
when you click <Finish>.
Congratulations
Thats it! You have successfully completed the installation of your Axiom tools.
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Prerequisites
1. MicroStation SE or J.
2. Microsoft Office Importer must be installed on your computer. You can verify this by
selecting the Axiom menu from MicroStations main menu bar, then select
Microsoft Office Importer. If Microsoft Office Importer does not load, follow the
instructions in the Installation section of your Microsoft Office Importer Users
Guide.
3. You will need the sample files that are delivered with Microsoft Office Importer.
These sample files will be found in a samples folder in the Microsoft Office
Importer installation folder. By default, it is located here:
c:\Program Files\Axiom\V7\office\sample\
Demonstration Version
The demonstration version of Microsoft Office Importer will work with design files up to
100 kilobytes and expires on a specific date. Until the time of expiration, you can use
Microsoft Office Importer to become fully familiar with its features.
The demonstration version also has an accumulated paste limit of 50 lines. To reset the
limit, unload Microsoft Office Importer through Utilities | MDL Applications, choose
OFFICE and click the <Unload> button. Then, restart Microsoft Office Importer from
the Axiom menu.
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Tutorial #1 Basics
1. Select Microsoft Office Importer from the Axiom menu. You will see the Microsoft
Office Importer toolbar.
2. Click the <Settings> button, located on the far right of the Microsoft Office Importer
toolbar, to open the Settings dialog box.
3. Just in case someone worked with Microsoft Office Importer before you began this
Quick Start, lets restore factory defaults. In the upper left hand corner of the settings
dialog box, you will see a File drop down menu. Select the option, Reset to Factory
Defaults.
6. In the next tutorials, we will look at pasting a spreadsheet with the default settings
and then changing settings and pasting again to see how the appearance of the paste
can be altered.
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4. Load Microsoft Excel and open the sample file provided with Microsoft Office
Importer called project.xls. It will be found in the installation directory. For
example:
c:\program files\axiom\v7\office\sample\project.xls
5. Copy all or part of the spreadsheet to the clipboard by using highlight and Edit |
Copy or <Ctrl+C>.
6. Now go back to MicroStation and press Microsoft Office Importers <Paste clipboard
data into MicroStation> button:
7. Move your mouse/cursor and notice that a box is hanging off of your cursor point.
Move the cursor over to a blank place in the design file.
8. Click to accept the placement. Microsoft Office Importer will drop the contents
of the clipboard from the Excel file onto your MicroStation design file.
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9. By default, your paste will contain a link to the Excel spreadsheet. You will see the
following information box that you can close by clicking the <OK> button.
10. Use the Window Area tool to zoom in on that newly placed box to see the text. The
image below shows part of what you should see on your screen:
The text, which is a ten point Arial font in the Excel table, is pasted with a text height of
10 master units in the design file. This is the result of using the default settings.
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2. From the Borders: pull down menu, select Always, and click the <OK> button.
3. Your text from the last tutorial should still be on the clipboard. If it is not, copy the
selected spreadsheet information to the clipboard again.
4. In MicroStation, click the paste button and place the new spreadsheet in a blank part
of the design file.
5. Part of your pasted data should look like the image below.
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When you paste Word documents using the factory default settings, you should get a
good quality paste that is acceptable in most cases. There are a couple of conditions you
may have to care for to maximize the quality of your pastes and these are:
All text will paste with the factory default font, which is font 0, Standard. Words that
are italicized or bolded within sentences will be italicized or bolded by default in the
paste. To modify the bold weight or italic slant, modify the Attributes section under
the Formatting tab within Microsoft Office Importers settings.
You can, however, easily change a single option at paste time to paste with full
formatting including indenting, numbered lists, italics and bold text. This option will
also give the best result when pasting numbered lists or documents with tabs. See the
section in this Quick Start titled Pasting with TrueType fonts.
The width of text may or may not be acceptable for your use. You can easily change
the width. See the section in this tutorial titled, Changing the width of the paste.
See later sections in this guide for other options to change size, color of text, and line
height.
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this tutorial, you should import into MicroStation the four TrueType fonts of the Times
family mentioned above.
Now you are ready to begin.
1. Open the Microsoft Office Importer Settings dialog box and select the Text as in
the image below.
2. Select the Font tab. Then, select the Advanced font mapping: option. The image
below shows the default settings for Roman (Times) text.
3. Ensure that the Roman (Times) font is highlighted in the font list on the left.
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4. The four text boxes on the right allow you to select a different font for normal, bold,
italic, and bold-italic Roman (Times) text. Select a font for Normal text (not bold
or italicized) by opening the pull-down menu and highlighting your Times font
(font number 62 in our example below).
Tip: If you have no separate fonts for bold and italic, you can select the same font for all
four options and select the Weight and Slant checkboxes. Define the bold weight and
italic slant in the Formatting tab options.
6. You have now set up the automatic conversion of Times New Roman text to a Times
font. You may want to take a minute to save these settings by choosing File | Save
Settings. They will automatically be saved to your default settings in the
office.ini file.
7. Close the Settings dialog box by clicking the <OK> button.
8. In Word, open the sample file named OfficeSample.doc that is delivered with
Microsoft Office Importer. This file is located in the Microsoft Office Importer
sample folder which, by default, it is located here:
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C:\Program Files\Axiom\V7\office\sample\
9. Select all the text in the OfficeSample.doc file and copy it to the Windows
Clipboard (Edit | Copy...).
10. In MicroStation, click Microsoft Office Importers <Paste> button. You will see the
Paste Word data into MicroStation dialog box.
11. Choose Define width while placing text. from the Page width: pull down menu,
shown in the screen shot below:
12. Place two data points to define the width of the paste in the design file.
13. The resulting paste will use the Times New Roman fonts and show good formatting
for italics, bold and underlined text.
Note: If your paste only shows an outline of the letters (the letters are not filled in), you
simply need to turn on the fill view attribute in MicroStation (Settings | View
Attributes | Fill).
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5. Paste the contents of the clipboard into your sample design file using the default
options. It will have no special formatting and may look something like the image
below, which shows the leftmost part of the paste. Each paragraph is a text node.
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5. Now you are prompted to enter two points to define the width. Your result could look
like the image below.
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5. The Paste Excel data into MicroStation dialog box appears. Set the Page width:
to Width defined by text size on clipboard. Note that the Import with link to
original document and Update automatically when design file opens options are
on by default.
6. Use a data point to place your clipboard information into the design file.
7. Now click the <Info> button Microsoft Office Importer toolbar.
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8. You will see a highlighted display of link information that includes the path to the
source document and the type of link. The highlighted border shows the exact extent
of the pasted table.
Note: The text size of the link information is set in your MicroStation active text size.
The size of the link information text may be different than the default size used for the
imported text.
9. Next, click the <Manage> button.
10. In MicroStations status bar (lower left of your MicroStation window) you will be
prompted to Identify element in the pasted data. Actual text will state Manage
Import Link > Identify element. Put a data point somewhere on the pasted elements
and then click another data point to accept. The Manage Import Link dialog box
then opens (shown below).
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11. Click the <Edit> button and make some changes into the spreadsheet. Be sure to
save the changes in Excel because the update function only picks up saved changes.
12. Back in MicroStation, click the <Update> button. The pasted text will update with
your saved changes.
Note: By default Microsoft Office Importer, installs in the MS_DGNAPPS configuration
variable. The result of this is that if you update the source document later and then open
the design file, Microsoft Office Importer triggers an automatic update of pasted text.
4. Open the sample spreadsheet the Microsoft Office Importer sample folder called
Project.xls.
5. Select the chart Microsoft Office Importers sample chart
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SW parcel 1a
SW parcel 1b
SW parcel 1c
SW parcel 2
SW parcel 2a
6. Right-click and select the Copy option from the right-click menu.
7. Now, inside MicroStation, click the <Paste Excel charts into MicroStation> button.
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or
You can load Microsoft Office Importer by keying in an mdl load command on the
MicroStation command line. You need to add the path to office.ma for your installation.
For example:
mdl load c:\program files\axiom\v7\office\office.ma
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option is selected at the time of the Paste. See the chapter on Managing Import Links in
this guide for more information.
When you press the <Paste clipboard data into MicroStation> button on the main tool
bar, Microsoft Office Importer will open the Paste Excel data into MicroStation box
and allow you to paste the contents of your computers clipboard onto your design.
Note: The title bar will indicate if you are pasting Excel data Paste Excel data into
MicroStation or Word data Paste Word data into MicroStation to clearly show what
type of data you are pasting.
When this box appears and there is Microsoft Word or Excel data on the clipboard, you
can paste with a single data point in the design file.
See the Paste clipboard data into MicroStation section of this guide for a detailed
description of the options available in this box.
The <Paste Excel charts into MicroStation> button will allow you to paste Excel charts
into your design file. These charts are linked to the source chart so that any modification
to the chart can be automatically updated inside the design file.
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When you press the <Manage> button on the main tool bar, Microsoft Office Importer
will ask you to Identify element. Click on an element in the pasted information you
want to work with. Then you will see the Manage Import Link box with options to edit,
update or unlink the linked document that you chose to manage. This box and its options
are described in detail later in this guide.
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When you press the <Info> button, Microsoft Office Importer will highlight any of its
linked data in your file. As you can see in the sample below, the path to the source
document displays as well as the link type.
Definitions: Link type can be Automatic, Manual or Not Linked.
With Automatic links, the pasted text updates automatically when the design file is
opened as long as Microsoft Office Importer is running.
With Manual links, updates occur only when you click the <Update> button on the
Manage Import Link dialog box.
The <Settings> icon will bring up the Microsoft Office Importer Settings box, which is
described in a later section of this guide. Microsoft Office Importer has many options that
allow you to place documents with the settings and symbology that you want.
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The Microsoft Office Importer default settings have been designed to give great results in
most cases. However, you may need to modify some settings to achieve the best results
with your data.
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Page width:
The Page width: drop down menu gives you two options for pasting Excel data into
MicroStation. For pasting Word data into MicroStation, you have three Page width:
options. Each option produces very different results and are described in the following
sections.
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Note: This option, Define width while placing text does not function when importing
tables in Word documents. In these cases when Define width while placing text is used
the import width will be the same as if the Define width from clipboard text size option
was used. This is because the Scale proportional to Word data (or Excel data) option
should be used to maintain the same cell width to height ratio as in the spreadsheet when
importing. Another option is to use MicroStations Graphic Group lock and the Scale
Element tool after the import to resize the imported area as needed.
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Using the default settings as in the image above, 10-point text will paste with a height of
10 master units and a width of 8 master units.
Text height:
The Text Height field displays the text height scale of master units to points that is
currently active and gives you a chance to change it if you want.
Text width:
The Text Width: field allows you to make a last minute change to the width of a
standard character.
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from the source document automatically when you open the design file. However, this
can happen only when Microsoft Office Importer is loaded and running.
To set up for automatic updating, see the section called Installation for automatic
update in the installation section of this guide.
Tip: If you want to turn Automatic update on or off for a selection that has already
been imported, you can do so in the Manage Import Linkbox, accessed via the
Manage button on the Microsoft Office Importer toolbar.
The <Paste Excel charts into MicroStation> will allow you to paste Excel charts into your
design file. These charts are linked to the source chart for future automatic update by
Microsoft Office Importer.
The Paste Excel charts into MicroStation box appears after you have copied an Excel
chart to your clipboard and clicked the <Paste Excel charts into MicroStation> button.
The Paste Excel charts into MicroStation dialog allows you to increase or decrease the
size of your chart beforeit is pasted into your design file.
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Scale
The Scale field is used to adjust the size of your chart as it will appear in your design
file. A Scale of 1.0 (the default) is recommended. This will result in the placement of a
chart that is comparable in size to other Excel data (cells) that youd paste in that same
design file.
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<Apply>
The <Apply> button will only be enabled if a valid change to the Excel Range or
Symbology is made. Click the <Apply> button to apply any changes made to Excel
Range or Symbology.
<Edit>
Click the <Edit> button to open the source document for editing. Be sure to save your
modified source document. <Update>
Click the <Update> button to update the linked information from the source document.
Also use the <Update> button to confirm any changes made in the Source field.
If you originally imported the pasted information without selecting the link option or you
have unlinked an area, you can establish the link by just clicking <Update>.
The <Update> function works only with saved files and it is always necessary to save the
changed source file before the update in order for the update to be successful.
Tip: Use the key-in command OFFICE UPDATEALL to update all of the Microsoft
Office Importer links in your active model.
<Close>
Click <Close> to close the Manage Import Link box.
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Source:
When you move or rename a source file that is linked to a design file, the link is
generally broken. With the <Select> button you can locate the source document in its
new location and Microsoft Office Importer will repair the link. After locating the new
source document, click the <Update> button to save the full file specification as the new
Source: field value.
<Unlink>
Click <Unlink> to delete the active link information. After doing this, you will not be
able to update automatically from the source document. However, you can establish the
link again as described in the previous paragraph.
Excel Attributes
This section of the box gives you options for adjusting the cell range and the Excel sheet
name the information was pasted from.
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Sheet Name
Edit the name of the Excel sheet tab from which your spreadsheet was pasted. If the name
of the Excel sheet was changed, click the <Apply> button to apply the name change.
Text
These are options for setting the symbology for all of the text in an existing Microsoft
Office Importer paste.
Color:
Color overrides the present text color within your imported text, check this option and
use the color picker to select any color for your pasted text.
Weight
Weight overrides the present text weight within your imported text, check this option
and use the weight picker to select any weight for your pasted text.
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Style:
Style overrides the present text style of your imported text, check this option and use
the style picker to select any style for your pasted text.
Level:
Level overrides the present text level of your imported text, check this option and use
the level picker to select any level for your pasted text.
Borders
The Borders category allows a user to modify color, weight, style and level attributes
for any previously pasted spreadsheet or word document. Take unselected settings
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options are also available for Borders as well. Remember, changes here will be applied
to all of the border lines.
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Use the <Info> button to highlight all linked data in the active design file and display the
name of the source document and the link type (Automatic, Manual or Not Linked). Link
type will be Not Linked if you did not use the option to link the text. However, you can
still use the <Edit> button to open the source document and update the file.
Note: This functionality is also available from the Axiom pull-down menu. Select the
Highlight existing Microsoft Office Importer links option to display the link
information.
You can choose the color, line weight and line style of the display in the Settings |
Import Link box.
The text size of the link information is the active text size and is not related to the size of
the pasted text.
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File menu
The File menu on the top bar of the Settings box allows you to save several sets of
options and recall options that were previously saved.
Options are saved in initialization files also known as .ini files. The .ini files can be
edited with a text editor.
When you first install and run Microsoft Office Importer, the program creates an
office.ini file in the same directory with office.ma. This file contains the factory
default settings and loads by default when Microsoft Office Importer starts up.
The default settings file office.ini will initially contain the factory default settings
values but you can change these settings and save your preferences to any location.
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Load Settings...
When Microsoft Office Importer is started up, it searches for a valid settings file and
loads the first one it finds. It looks in the following places:
1. The .ini file defined in the $(OFFICE_INI) MicroStation configuration variable.
2. The office.ini file in the directory defined by the $(OFFICE_INI) MicroStation
configuration variable.
3. The previous settings file used if it exists.
4. The office.ini file in the directory that office.ma was executed from.
5. The office.ini file in the axiom directory.
6. If Microsoft Office Importer does not find office.ini in any of these directories,
it will use its factory default settings.
Save Settings
Use Save Settings to save all currently selected options into the active settings file.
If you have not loaded a different .ini file, the settings will be saved to the default .ini
file, which is OFFICE.INI.
Help menu
The Help menu gives you options to open the Microsoft Office Importer Help file
and to open an HTML file with version and licensing information, as well as Axiom
contact information and e-mail addresses.
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Help | Contents...
The Contents option of the Help menu opens this Users Guide in the form of a
Help file.
Help | About...
The Help | About function displays an informational box which shows the current
version, license type and copyright information for Microsoft Office Importer. It also
gives you Axiom contact information and hyperlinks.
Category
In the settings box you will see several categories on the left. When you highlight one of
these categories, the options associated with that category appear on the right.
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Match
Use this button to change the current settings to match those settings stored in an existing
link. Click the <Match> button, select the link you want to match the settings from, then
data point to accept.
Information field
At the bottom of the settings box is an information field. The information displayed in
this field relates to the last area where you clicked your mouse. In the example below,
input focus is in the Height field.
This information field contains only a general description. If you need more information,
you can use the Help | Contents... menu to bring up the full Users Guide.
<OK>
Click <OK> to accept the current settings and close the Settings box.
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<Cancel>
Click <Cancel> to close the Settings box without saving any changes made.
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Microsoft Word provides TrueType fonts for creating "portable" documents, that is,
documents that always keep their original appearance no matter which computer or
printer you use to view or print them.
The TrueType fonts and the PostScript fonts have a font family. These are Roman
(Times), Swiss (Arial, Helvetica), Modern (Courier), Script (Script) and some
others. You can use the full family when pasting Microsoft Word documents.
The image below shows the font family settings box with the factory defaults.
Using font families allows you to achieve the best output with the least amount of work.
Use <Set all to normal> to set the bold, italic and bold-italic fonts to the same number
font as the normal font for that font family. Text that is on the clipboard as bold or italic
text will then paste using the normal font.
Use the <Set all to default> button to set all fonts to the default font that is on the
previous tab. This erases all special settings.
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6. Clickthe <Add>button to put your selected fonts in the file list and then click the
<Done> button.
7. Click the <Open> button on the right side and navigate to the resource file that
contains the fonts in your copy of MicroStation. The default location is usually:
\Bentley\Workspace\system\symb\font.rsc
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8. Click <OK>. Youll know if you have the right file because all the fonts that are
already in MicroStation will now appear in the right-side window of the dialog box.
9. Highlight the fonts in the source file list.
10. Click the <>> Copy>> > button to import your fonts.
11. When the import processing is completed, click the <Done> button.
Use the Formatting tab to set options for importing paragraphs as text nodes, importing
stacked fractions, setting the symbology and other options.
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Examples:
For example, consider a paragraph containing one underlined word like the following.
Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of
the party.
When this option is On (checked), this text pastes as a single text node and all words
have the same formatting. The underline is lost.
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Symbology
Color:
To select a color that is different from the source document color and the MicroStation
active color, check this option and use the color picker to select any color for your pasted
text.
Weight:
To select a weight that is different from the source document weight and the
MicroStation active weight, check this option and use the weight picker to select the
weight for your pasted text.
Style:
To specify a line style attribute for your text, check this option and use the style picker to
select the line style for your pasted text.
Level:
The Level field contains the level for text placement. To change it, just type in another
valid level number.
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Attributes
Modify these attributes to change bold weight the angle of italicized text.
Bold Weight
Modifying this value specifies Microsoft Office Importer to use this setting for imported
text with a bold style.
Italic slant
Modifying this value causes Microsoft Office Importer to add a slant attribute to
imported text.
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Name
The Name field gives you the opportunity to create named pairs of text height and text
width values. These values are available to you when pasting documents into
MicroStation through the Paste Excel data into MicroStation dialog box.
Note: The Named text size: option on the Paste... dialog box will display and make
named text sizes are defined in the current Microsoft Office Importer settings.
Text height:
The Text height field gives you the translation factor from text point size in Microsoft
Office to text character height in MicroStation master units.
The default scale of 1.00000 gives a one point to one master unit ratio.
Examples:
With scale 1.00000:
8-point text pastes at 8 master units.
10-point text pastes as 10 master units.
With a scale of 0.60000:
8-point text pastes as 4.8 master units. (8 x 0.6)
10-point text pastes as 6 master units. (10 x 0.6)
With a scale of 1.40000:
8-point text pastes as 11.2 master units. (8 x 1.4)
10-point text pastes as 14 master units. (10 x 1.4)
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Text width:
The Text width field gives you the translation factor from text point size in Microsoft
Office to text character width in MicroStation master units.
The default scale of 0.80000 gives a one point to 0.8 master unit ratio.
Examples:
With scale 0.80000:
8-point text pastes at 6.4 master units.
10-point text pastes as 8 master units.
With a scale of 0.60000:
8-point text pastes as 4.8 master units. (8 x 0.6)
10-point text pastes as 6 master units. (10 x 0.6)
With a scale of 1.40000:
8-point text pastes as 11.2 master units. (8 x 1.4)
10-point text pastes as 14 master units. (10 x 1.4)
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When using the ratio lock, if either height or width changes, the other number changes to
maintain the same ratio.
To set or change the ratio, unlock the text ratio lock icon by clicking on it. Change width
and height so as to obtain the desired ratio. Then click <Update> to apply the changes.
After you set the ratio, you can now close the lock icon, change the width or height and
expect the ratio to be maintained.
Add
<Add> button allows you add a name to the list of height/width pairs.
Remove
<Remove> button will delete a named pair from the list of height/width pairs.
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Update
<Update> button will update height and width values that have been modified for the
highlighted pair.
<Move Up> and <Move Down> allows you to change the order in which the named pairs
are displayed within the list.
Word wrap
If text is too long for the cell width, the following rules apply:
1. If the cell formatting option in Excel includes "Word wrap", then text in the cell is
always wrapped.
2. If word wrap is not selected and the adjacent cell is empty, then text overflows into
the next cell.
3. If the adjacent cell is not empty, then text is truncated.
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Example:
If you paste a table from Microsoft Word with 10-point text using Microsoft
Office Importer default settings, the cell height will be 15 master units.
10 pt * 1 mu/pt * 150% = 15 master units cell height in the design file.
With 12-point text, again using the default settings, the cell height will be 18 master
units.
12 pt * 1 mu/pt * 150% = 18 master units cell height in the design file
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In that case, the formula becomes the same as the formula for Excel spreadsheets when a
precise row height is defined.
CellHeightMS = CellHeight * TextScale * NonTextHeight
where
CellHeightMS - the height of the cell in MicroStation in master units
CellHeight - precise cell height defined in source application
TextScale - text height scale setting value, mu/pt
NonTextHeight - non-text height setting value
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Border lines:
Use the Border lines: option to control the handling of cell borders and grid lines.
Note: Excel does not place borders on cells by default. Cell borders can be applied
through Excels Format | Cells | Borders box. Borders are user-definable.
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As in source
When you select As in source, you will get borders displaying as they are displayed in
the source document. The cell grid lines will not be imported.
Always
When you select Always, every cell will be outlined by grid lines or border lines in the
design file. The user-defined borders override any grid lines in the source document.
Never
Select Never, to turn off all cell outlinesneither borders nor grid lines will be
imported.
Symbology
Use the options in this area to set the Symbology attributes for your border lines when
you paste data into your active design file.
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Color:
To select a color that is different from the source document color and the MicroStation
active color, check this option and use the color picker to select any color for imported
borders and grid lines.
Weight
To select a weight that is different from the source document weight and the
MicroStation active weight, check this option and use the weight picker to select the
weight for imported borders and grid lines.
Style
To select a line style that is different from the source document line style and the
MicroStation active style, check this option and use the style picker to select the line style
for imported borders and grid lines.
Level
The Level field contains the level for imported borders and grid lines placement. To
change it, just type in another valid level number.
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Note: Microsoft Word and Excel information can be linked. Access database
information cannot be linked.
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3. At the bottom of your axiom.cfg file, type in or paste the following line:
MS_DGNAPPS > $(AXI)office/office.ma
4. Save the axiom.cfg file and close it.
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Formatting Options
Microsoft Office applications have many powerful formatting options that can be used to
control the appearance of text in your Office documents. It is not possible for Microsoft
Office Importer to duplicate all of these formatting options. In fact, some of the
formatting information for these options is not placed in the Windows clipboard when
you copy your text to the clipboard. Because of this, Microsoft Office Importer cannot
always format your imports exactly as they are in the Office document. This section
describes specific conditions that can be caused by this lack of formatting information.
Please review this section when your import is substantially different than what you
expected.
Tables
In Microsoft Excel, text overlaps cell border
Text has an inherent problem that the fonts available in MicroStation may not match
those used in Windows. Even when using fonts of the same size, MicroStation can use a
different size for the space character. This makes it difficult to correctly gauge cell width.
If you do not specify a font in the Font settings tab, the default font will be used. This
may produce unexpected results.
For the best results use the Advanced font mapping option in the Fonts tab of your
text settings. Find the source font in the list of font families displayed on the left of the
image below.
Chapter 13 Troubleshooting
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See the font settings section in this guide for a description of how to select a different
font and how to import a Windows font into MicroStation.
You can also enlarge the cells by increasing the Non-text Area Height and Non-text
Area Width settings.
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Chapter 13 Troubleshooting
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The usual cause is that the text indenting space in the Word file is relatively small and the
font in MicroStation is wider than the one in Word. Handle this by increasing the text
indent in the Numbered list properties of the Word document and you will see the space
emerging.
Here is how to handle this:
1. Highlight some of the numbered text in the source document and right click with the
mouse.
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3. In the box that appears, you will have several formatting selections under the
Numbered tab. Select one that gives a larger indentation as in the image below.
Then click <OK>.
4. Before you paste, be sure you turn off the toggle for Import paragraphs as text
nodes. in Microsoft Office Importers Paste clipboard contents box.
Your next paste should look more like this:
Chapter 13 Troubleshooting
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Roman for example and the bullet will be displayed. This will work in some cases
because the numeric code for a bullet in many fonts is the same numeric code in the
Symbol font.
The other option is to have Microsoft Office Importer convert the font for the bullet
character from Symbol to Times Roman when you import the text. You do this by
selecting the Microsoft Office Importer tool Settings | Text and the Font tab, then
change the Normal: and Bold: fields to point to the Times Roman font. Your settings
should look like this.
When you do this, subsequent edits and updates of the imported text will result in the last
item keeping its bullet or number.
Tip: You can view the paragraph marks in a Word document as in the image above by
selecting the menu items Tools | Options | View and select the All checkbox under
Nonprinting characters.
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Chapter 13 Troubleshooting
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Paragraph Indenting
At times it appears as if Microsoft Office Importer is not processing tab characters that
you inserted into your Word document. There are two possible reasons for this.
One way the tabs will be ignored is when pasting with the Import paragraphs as text
nodes paste option checked. To handle this, ensure the Import paragraphs as text
nodes option is Off in the Paste Clipboard Contents options.
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Another reason relates to an option in Microsoft Word that sets the left indent with the
tab key. If this option is checked, pressing the tab key with the insertion point at the left
side of a line will move the indent point to the next tab stop. In this case, a tab character
is not placed in the line. To turn off this Word option, go to the Word menu Tools |
Options and select the Edit tab. Uncheck the option Tabs and backspaces set left
indent.
With this Word option checked, the Microsoft Office Importer Settings | Text |
Formatting [tab] | Spaces between tab stops option has no effect on the import because
there are no tab characters in the imported text.
Linking Options
You may find the linking options on the paste box are not checked and cannot be
selected. This condition occurs when you have closed the source document before pasting
the data copied from the source document.
Chapter 13 Troubleshooting
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To permanently delete linked text and tables, turn Graphic Group lock on before
deleting. This will pick up the construction element and the paste will be permanently
deleted.
To move or rotate linked text and tables you must include the construction element in the
move. To do this, turn Graphic Group lock on before moving or rotating.
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Field Codes
There are many field codes that can be inserted into Word documents and the list of field
codes differs with different versions of Word. Microsoft Office Importer must perform
special processing for each field code imported. Microsoft Office Importer cannot process
all field codes available in Word documents. Processing for the most frequently used
field codes has been implemented in Microsoft Office Importer. However, if a field code
is imported that is not recognized by Microsoft Office Importer, then that code will not be
included in the paste. You will have to interactively edit the text in MicroStation to insert
the missing text that resulted from the field code in the Word document.
Clipboard is tied up
Once you have clicked the paste tool with valid data on the clipboard, it will be tied up by
Microsoft Office Importer.
The clipboard will be released as soon as its Microsoft Office Importers paste into your
design file is complete.
Chapter 13 Troubleshooting
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problem occurred. Also make sure to include the version number of MicroStation and
Microsoft Office Importer that you are running.
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Ability for user to specify a user-defined font for all imported text
Ability to use the active font at time of paste for all imported text
Users can now change the range of existing Excel links. This feature is especially
important to users who add new columns or rows to their spreadsheets but do not use
named ranges in Excel.
Users can now define a list of named pairs of text height and width values. That list is
available at paste time, which is especially valuable to users who work at multiple scales
and thus need quick access to different height/width settings for their imported text.
We now refer to Borders not Table Lines.
We added a lock to the settings for text height and width that you can use to
automatically maintain the ratio between these numbers.
The Link Information box was not always displayed rotated when the linked elements
were displayed in a rotated view. This was fixed.
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The settings category name Table was changed to Table lines to be more descriptive.
When pasting into a rotated view, the paste was occurring at a distance from the cursor
position. This was fixed.
There was a problem with Windows 2000 pastes when track changes was turned on
during the paste. Sometimes deleted text appeared in the pasted text. This was handled.
This version of Microsoft Office Importer does not yet fully support Office XP. You may
notice some formatting differences.
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You now have an option to turn cell borders on or off without modifying the source
document.
Speed of operation has been improved. This new version, despite its greatly increased
formatting capabilities, has tested faster than the previous version in every speed test.
This is remarkable considering the magnitude and quantity of new formatting features
incorporated into this version.
Some versions of Excel produced columns that were too narrow when using default
settings. Default settings can now be used to produce a column width that more closely
matches the source document.
We handled a problem with text in cells not always wrapping properly, but extending into
an adjacent empty cell.
Column headers containing formulas sometimes merged incorrectly. This has been fixed.
When importing from Word documents, hanging indents were not properly handled. This
is fixed.
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This version includes a Manage box with functions for bringing up the source
document for updating, updating the design file from the source document, or dropping
the link. It provides an option for changing from manual to automatic update or vice
versa. Additionally, you can correct a broken link by browsing to the new location of a
source document.
For linked text, a new Information icon on the main toolbox displays the extents of the
linked data, path to the source document and link type.
We handled a problem in that clipboard information was being deleted after the first paste
from a Word document. This data is now saved on the clipboard so that you can make as
many pastes as you want without refreshing the clipboard.