has anyone tried to use Office v.X Excel's "Camera"

[JCovarrubias]

.. (Mac) for copy/paste into PlotMaker Layout's?

Is it any more effective than a regular copy/paste on OS X?

[JCovarrubias]

How does it work? it's an alternative to OLE (which doesn't exist on OS X for ArchiCAD/PlotMaker)

1.) Tools-> Customize (go to right column)-> Camera
2.) Drag this Camera icon to your upper toolbar in Excel for an easy shortcut to the tool
3.) Highlight cells you want to capture
4.) Click on Camera icon that you created
5.) In PlotMaker Layout, Paste the captured cells

[JCovarrubias]

screenshot below

[tsturm]

Jeffery

This was a great process in older versions of AC and PM and Excel.

Today using Office X.v and AC 8.1 and PM 3.1, I find that simply selecting and copying (cmd+c) the table and then opening a new drawing and pasting the information.

Also, I make sure the drawing is at 100 percent when I do the paste. This can be done into AC so that links between plotmaker and archicad are used in updating. Or a person can open the PMK files and paste the information in there. Either method works just by copying and pasting. No more looking around for the camera tool.

Your method still works, mine is just another method with less steps.

[JCovarrubias]

copy/paste has been a method I've used in the past
see FAQ's # 352 at
http://tr.graphisoftus.com/

as stated "Drag this Camera icon to your upper toolbar in Excel for an easy shortcut to the tool"
you can make a change to your toolbar so that the camera is always available, so do the steps at least once

my point for posting about the Camera tool:
I wanted to know if it was more accurate/precise (effective) than copy/paste

[tsturm]

My experience has been that pasting PICT content into AC or PM can get messed up depending on the user. If the user does not consistantly set the scale of the work area before pasting then the infomation is often out of scale.

The Camera method in Excel will give you a PICT version of the Excel table. This information then pasted into AC can then be scaled incorrectly based on the percentage the person is then set to when viewing the work area.

Also a user might be frustated in Excel when trying to make a table/schedule which is a certain size. This is important when you are working with office standards and determined grids on your layout sheets. The schedules need to fit the grid. In Excel, there is no way to size the columns base on inches.

Here I draw a bounding box. This box can be set in size to inches. I can be moved and snapped to the cells of the schedule and prevented from resizing when the columns are moved and changed.

Now I have control over the informatin coming from Excel.

Lately, I have been just copying a selection of cells and pasting them into a Plotmaker Drawing. Then saving this file as a PMK. This PMK is then linked to a layout. All the schedule's information can be edited if need be. The schedule can be moved around the layout without losing any of its parts. It can be added to any number of projects. So for offices where a schedule of abbreviations is used. This schedule can be done once and then used again and again.

The Camera process may still be necessary for some people. I find that getting to this tool in Excel is very difficult for some people. And the process much more involved than the method I have tried to describe.

If someone wants, I can post pictures of my process.

[JCovarrubias]

Interesting copy/paste+PMK technique, I would like to post this to our TR database (with your permission)

thank you

[tsturm]

Dear Jeff

Would you like me to send you some screen captures of my process? do you have a good, clear understanding of the process?

I would be happy to have you post this process to you TR site.