By Dennis Collin
AutoCAD has had the ability to create tables for some years. They can be generated via the Data Extraction tool and be used to count and list block attributes, or be created manually to document information like revisions on sheets or represent an external Excel file within a drawing file using AutoCAD’s data link facility.
AutoCAD tables can be exported to spreadsheet programs like Excel by using the export option on the context right click menu.
Whilst tables are useful, they don’t possess the same functionality as an Excel worksheet, at least not with the out of the box tools. However, AutoCAD does have a range of useful add-ins that improve AutoCAD’s ability to work with tables including the sorting of tables into numerical or alphabetical order.
Table sort is a useful add-in that does just that. Located on the app store, once installed, adds some useful extra functionality when working with AutoCAD tables. The default sorting method will be fine for most applications, but this can be changed in options if required.
In the example drawing below a listing of survey markers can be sorted by any field with some extra options within the right click menu.
Sometimes the sorting options are greyed out, this can happen if the add-in detects an entity within the table that it doesn’t understand.
These include:
- Tables with merged cells.
- Cells that are read only or have a format lock.
- Cells that are data linked in whole or in part.
- Cells that contain blocks or multiple content items.
Despite these limitations Table sort is a useful add-in to have if working with many table elements.
The app can be accessed from the App store here:
https://apps.autodesk.com/ACD/en/Detail/Index?id=4790977574413485803&appLang=en&os=Win64
(Login Required)
It works with AutoCAD versions 2021 -2024 and is free to use.