Clearwater, Florida, USA —It’s summertime here in Florida and that often means sweltering temperatures, long lines at Disney World and bad tan lines. Rather than venture outdoors, I find myself sorting through my e-mail inbox to see what users are saying about using Microsoft Office Importer. Just so you know, Microsoft Office Importer is Axiom’s most popular utility in terms of total number of users, probably because it enables MicroStation users to import and link Excel spreadsheet and Word document data into MicroStation with ease, reliability and exact formatting. Equipment schedules, bills of materials, tabular data, construction notes and the like can all be pasted once and will stay up-to-date in your design file — even when the spreadsheet changes – with no further user interaction, beyond opening that design file.

Need to import spreadsheets into MicroStation? Frustrated with the way you are doing it now? Read on to find out what users are doing to make this process a breeze.

All of the comments that you are about to read are unsolicited accounts about Microsoft Office Importer from real Axiom customers.

David N. Rackmales of the US Army Corps of Engineers said, “[Microsoft] Office Importer is probably the most intuitive, reliable and user-friendly program or add-on I’ve ever used. Training for the users here takes about a minute.”

I believe it! Aside from being easy to use, Microsoft Office Importer is also a huge time-saver when it comes to importing Word documents and Excel spreadsheet data.

Abe Arollo of Aztec Engineering declares, “Without Microsoft Office Importer, importing spreadsheets was a two-step process that took two people (a designer and a CAD drafter) a minimum of two hours on a simple Excel spreadsheet to a maximum of five hours on a complex spreadsheet.”

Tom Orner of EMCS, Incorporated also noticed Microsoft Office Importer’s time-saving benefits. He remarks, “This is an amazing tool. It easily saved us 75% to 90% of the time spent on importing our quantity sheets.”

Those savings of time do add up! One customer reported that, as a result of using Microsoft Office Importer, his company “saves $20,000 per year.”

Microsoft Office Importer also allows users to control almost any aspect of the document or spreadsheet data that they have imported into their design file. Color, weight, level, style, font, text size and other attributes can all be modified in Microsoft Office Importer’s settings. With these settings, users can ensure that their documents and spreadsheets will be imported to their exact specifications.

Another feature of Microsoft Office Importer is that it maintains the formatting of an Excel spreadsheet or Word document when either is imported into MicroStation. For example, text in the spreadsheet that is vertical remains vertical when imported into MicroStation. The ability to modify symbology and maintain formatting makes Microsoft Office Importer an extremely valuable tool for many MicroStation users.

Greg Mullins of Mullins & Associates claims, “Before [Microsoft Office] Importer, [the engineers] had to retype all their spreadsheets and Word documents in MicroStation. Now they simply import the text with perfect formatting.”

Thanks to everyone who wrote to me with all your comments! It’s feedback like that and customer input that drive our product development here at Axiom, so keep it coming! I just want to add, while e-mails are nice, a “YouTube” (www.youtube.com) testimonial about how Microsoft Office Importer saves you time would be spectacular!

New file tree structure offers amazing new features to save users’ time.

Clearwater, Florida, USA — Since its initial release in January 2006, DgnQuickPick has been the only MicroStation add-on that gives users the ability to select the MicroStation file they want to open with one mouse click.

Figure 1: The “DgnQuickPick File Tree” (V7 version) displays all the reference files attached to each design file in the tree. Users can open design files and reference files, straight from the tree.

This month, Axiom announced that the latest releases of DgnQuickPick — version 2.0 for MicroStation V7 and version 8.4 for MicroStation V8 — have undergone a complete overhaul and now offer users the choice between two different user interfaces. Users can still work with the familiar tabbed list, but now they also have the option of selecting files from a tree-style user interface.

DgnQuickPick gives V7 and V8 users the ability to view and open all the reference files attached to any given design file, straight from a single, simple tree (See Figures 1 and 2). What’s more, the tree-style user interface allows DgnQuickPick for V8 users to select models.

Figure 2: The “DgnQuickPick Model Tree” (DgnQuickPick for V8) allows users to select and open any reference file or model in the tree.

Figure 3: 3D models, read-only files, V7 design files, missing reference files and unsupported files are all displayed in the DgnQuickPick tree-style user interface with descriptive icons.

The tree-style user interface employs a hierarchy similar to Windows Explorer. Design files are first in the hierarchy, models (V8 only) are on the second “level” of the hierarchy and reference files are on the third “level”.

DgnQuickPick for V8 users can even utilize the tree to view the contents of any cell library by simply expanding it (clicking on the + icon, just like in Windows Explorer).

This will display all the cells in the library.

The tree-style user interface displays icons, providing users with more information about the files in their list. Read-only files display with a lock icon. 3D design files (or models in V8) display with a white cube icon. Missing reference file attachments are displayed with a special “missing reference” icon. DgnQuickPick for V8 uses a Bentley “B” icon to indicate V7 design files and the AutoCAD logo icon for DWG files. Unsupported file types are displayed with an “unrecognized file” icon. This includes files not recognized as MicroStation V7 or V8 design files, cell libraries or DGN libraries. See Figure 3 for an example of these icons.

Figure 4: DgnQuickPick users can right-click on an item in their list and select any one of these actions.

Users can now also take advantage of right-click menu options for files or models in their list. From the right-click menu, a user can open a file, attach a file as a reference to the active file, detach a reference file or execute predefined key-in commands.

Chris Borales, product manager for DgnQuickPick says, “DgnQuickPick users are going to find the new user interface more helpful and more intuitive. Not only does it give them instant access to any project design file or model, it also displays important information about the design files and models listed. With DgnQuickPick, users can quickly open any file or model, right from the tree. This ability saves them from browsing everywhere for a file or model to open it.”

Since January 2006, DgnQuickPick has provided users a way to get around the task of browsing for their design files and selecting them to be opened. Now, with the release of versions 2.0 (V7) and 8.4 (V8), users can select their files using either the familiar tabbed list or the new tree-style user interface. Chris Borales adds, “These are exciting releases! With the added functionality, users are going to love DgnQuickPick even more!”