Link text fields in Designer 10 with cells in Excel or Word (table)?

**Egg Bramhill** · 01 August 2015, 02:35 PM

Yes the spots are all consistent for now and do not see any changes in the actual number of spaces for the foreseeable future.

Hi Mark, I asked as some bays appear larger & smaller on your supplied images.

**pauland** · 01 August 2015, 02:46 PM

some bays appear larger & smaller

It made me wonder if some bays are for disabled people and some for motorbikes.

**Egg Bramhill** · 01 August 2015, 02:56 PM

Could be Paul, but I'm not even sure it's a parking lot, I think this was an example. However if Mark is going to link up a map to a spreadsheet obviously he'll need to bend the map to suit. Rather like the London Underground map is a schematic of the truth not the actual geographical map.

**pauland** · 01 August 2015, 03:02 PM

Here's a radical solution.

Just use excel. Colour the cell backgrounds appropriately. You can arrange the cells to logically reflect the allocation, if not the precise layout.

You can either not use Xara at all, or just load the excel as has been discussed.

A car park allocation diagram doesn't have to precisely mimic the physical layout, as Egg has mentioned.

**Egg Bramhill** · 01 August 2015, 03:12 PM

That's exactly how I've been doing it Paul, but using a Google Drive spreadsheet which loads into a placeholder. You can then use the "re-generate bitmap image" to show how the table looks and draw your map above the placeholder. The great thing about Google Sheets is you can "publish to the web" then each and every amendment is updated within a few minutes and reflected in the .xar file or Xara created site without any need for changes in Xara whatsoever.

download & preview the xar file in post #13

**pauland** · 01 August 2015, 03:49 PM

That's clever Egg. Maybe the OP wants a print document though - the OP doesn't say. You can always print the web page!

**Egg Bramhill** · 01 August 2015, 04:12 PM

Here's one more in line with Marks requirements. Preview to see.

**Egg Bramhill** · 01 August 2015, 04:18 PM

Yes, the print from a browser works fine Paul. Unfortunately it's not so great for use on a website as both FF & Chrome alter the alignment, but it's fine in IE. Mark only wanted to be able to print, so as long as he previews it in IE and prints from there that should suffice.

**mikeymopar** · 02 August 2015, 02:19 AM

Originally Posted by Mark56

Mike,

When you say 'getting the cells the right size' are you referring to the Excel cells or the ones drawn in Xara? The point values on the hard coded Xara file is about a Arial 5 pt.

Thank you all for trying to help me in this new endeavor...

yeah Mark, the actual cell sizes in excel. borrowing Egg's example the cells ended up being 20hx6w. something you just gotta paly with to get it aligned right. and like Paul stated if you only need the coloring straight-up excel is the way to go obviously but if you need the image then it's pretty simple and basic importing the fields into Xara

Originally Posted by Egg Bramhill

That's exactly how I've been doing it Paul, but using a Google Drive spreadsheet which loads into a placeholder. You can then use the "re-generate bitmap image" to show how the table looks and draw your map above the placeholder. The great thing about Google Sheets is you can "publish to the web" then each and every amendment is updated within a few minutes and reflected in the .xar file or Xara created site without any need for changes in Xara whatsoever.

download & preview the xar file in post #13

embarrassed to admit it Egg and Paul but i'm really slacking in this area. With no reliable internet until a year+ ago and now having fast but spotty internet, i try to avoid anything on-line completely

i'm gonna have to spend a little time in my office and try this way out Egg. I might have other applications where this is useful. If either you or Paul have any other pointers I'm sure Mark and I would appreciate it

thx guys

**Mark56** · 03 August 2015, 11:36 AM

Egg, Yes they were not all the same size, my fault for trying to get the numbers in the whole row not actually counting the correct number of spaces in each row. I have corrected that now that I'm using Mikey's method of importing the PDF fields.
I have not used any of the Google tools like the Spreadsheet, so that would be another learning curve as well. We do need to print these end documents out, a couple a hundred a week.
So you are linking the Google spreadsheet to the .xar file in some way???

Pauland, the spaces should be the same size except for one or two rows that are for larger vehicles like big RV's or box trucks.
I tried to use Excel but I am not that familiar with drawing in Excel. Drawing the drive lanes and buildings I have to put in became a little difficult. That may be an option that we want to explore. It it just I am much more comfortable drawing in Xara and started there first.
I have loaded the PDF into a layer in Xara and it seems to be working rather well. But I have not gotten all of the drawing refitted into my 8.5" X 14" page size just yet.

Mikey, the current maps do not have the sections colored sections. I just think it is easier to identify the sections by putting the boundaries in different colors. Not even sure if we want to commit to printing that much in color right now?

Thank you all for the suggestions. I feel that I have a better way of doing it for now and will talk with the boss when I can, but will look at the other methods suggested as well. We want this to be as easy and update-able as possible each week.

Mark

P.S. here is what I have so far...