Introduction
The FlexiTable™ settings file provides a way of defining how it connects to Microsoft Excel™. You should be experienced in using Excel and know how to define a named range in the spreadsheet.
FlexiTable requires Excel 2003 (Microsoft Office version 11) or later. It will not work with earlier versions of Excel.
Excel Settings Editor
The Excel tab of the Settings Editor dialog lets you specify how FlexiTable connects to an Excel file. You must give FlexiTable several bits of information about our Excel worksheet …
- Workbook name (file name)
- Worksheet name
- Range name for FlexiTable's caption
- Range name for FlexiTable's data
When you browse to find an Excel workbook file, FlexiTable retrieves a list of worksheets and cell ranges. It uses them to populate the option buttons Worksheets, Caption Range, and Data Range above right.
Cell Ranges
FlexiTable looks at two ranges of cells in an Excel worksheet to extract information from Excel to find …
Excel provides cell ranges as a way of naming an area on your spreadsheet. It's a little like defining a print area in your worksheet. If you're unfamiliar with Excel ranges, these links may help: Microsoft Office Online, Pearson Software Consulting and EXCELTIP.com.
Worksheet
The Worksheet defines in the Excel worksheet where the data range is located. By default Excel names them Sheet1, Sheet2, etc.. If the Excel file contains a single worksheet you do not need to specify this value.
Caption
The caption range includes just one Excel cell. The text in that cell is used as the header caption for the table in MicroStation.
Data Range
The data range is a contiguous rectangle of Excel cells. FlexiTable constructs a table in MicroStation having the same number of rows and columns as your data range.
Your data range should include captions in its first row. FlexiTable uses these as captions in the MicroStation table.
