Pipe Data Spreadsheet User Guide:

Excel to MicroStation Workflow Using Axiom Microsoft Office Importer

Table of Contents
Introduction
1 Getting Started
2 Using Excel
2.1 The Spreadsheet
2.2 Formatting
2.3 Tools
3 Axiom Office Importer
3.1 Links
4 Importing Pipe Data Sheets into MicroStation
4.1 Importing
4.2 Updating
5 Manual Edits
6 Tips
7 Trouble Shooting
8 Configuring For Your Workstation

Introduction
Pipe Data sheets can be difficult to fill out using MicroStation because of the large number of
columns (80+). Axiom Microsoft Office Importer can import pipe data sheet content from an
Excel spreadsheet into MicroStation. Changes made in the Excel spreadsheet can quickly be
updated in MicroStation. The licensing for this tool is server based; consequently the tool is only
available at the following ODOT offices:
 Portland, Flanders
 Salem, East
 Salem, TLC
 Springfield
 Roseburg
 White City
 Bend
 Klamath Falls
 La Grande
For information on content of the Pipe Data sheets refer to the Pipe Data chapter of the Contract
Plans Development Guide at
https://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/Engineering/Pages/CP-Development-Guide.aspx.

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If you have not used Axiom Office Importer for the Pipe Data Sheet, see the section #8
Configuring For Your Workstation before using.

The steps for preparing a Pipe Data Sheet with Axiom Office Importer are as follows:
1. Setup an empty active sheet as described in the CPDG (Contract Plans Development
Guide).
2. Copy the spreadsheet Pipe_2013.xlsm or pipe_11.xls to your project folder and enter the
pipe data into the Excel spreadsheet (see 2 Using Excel).
3. Start Axiom Microsoft Office Importer in MicroStation and load the pipe data sheet
settings file (see Axiom Office Importer).
4. Import the data from the Excel spreadsheet into the MicroStation pipe data sheet file
(see #4 Importing Pipe Data Sheets into MicroStation).
5. Make the few simple manual edits that are needed (see Manual Edits).

1 Getting Started
The Axiom Office Importer settings file is located on your F: drive under
F:\ODOT_DATA\USERCFG\data. It is named Pipe_2013.ini. If you have not configured your
.ini file, then see #8 Configuring For Your Workstation to customized the settings file for your
work.
The Excel spreadsheet, Pipe_2013.xlsm and the older pipe_11.xls file are also located on your F:
drive under F:\ODOT_DATA\USERCFG\data. Copy this file into your project folder. Do not
work in this folder because automatic updates to these files could overwrite any work you do.
Note that the Pipe_2013.xlsm file name may change over time.
When attaching a standard pipe data sheet as a reference file, use the Directory History and
select the …\V8i\standards\ref\ folder which is typically forth from the bottom of the list. Then
select the appropriate standard pipe .dgn file as shown below.

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2 Using Excel
Open the spreadsheet that you copied to your project folder. A security warning may appear.
Select Enable Content.

When the Security Warning appears, click Yes to accept the file as a Trusted Document.

2.1 The Spreadsheet

The spreadsheet is a fixed size to match the pipe data sheet. The number of rows and columns in
Excel match the pipe data sheet reference file, pipe_11.dgn. Columns should not be inserted.
Inserting and deleting rows is described below in this section. The cell height and width are fixed
to match pipe_11.dgn and also should not be changed.
The top rows and left most columns of the spreadsheet have been frozen so the margin and
headings are always displayed. Use the horizontal and vertical scroll bars to display different
sections of the spreadsheet.

Rows can be inserted and

deleted however care should be
taken. After editing, there
should be no more than 44 rows
in each section of the
spreadsheet. This can be

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confirmed by looking at the Row Count. The row count will become visible after clicking the
Copy Sheet # button.

If more than 44 rows are contained between the sheet number headings, an alert will pop up
when you copy the sheet data.
Up to ten pipe data sheets can be placed in
each Excel spreadsheet. The sheet number is
marked at the top of each section containing
rows of data.

2.2 Formatting
In the spreadsheet the text should normally be Arial font at 10 point size. Some exceptions are
columns B, AO, and CR. All data entered into the spreadsheet is formatted with Center/Center
alignment (except for column AO, the sloped ends column). Checkmarks are also an exception
which use the Wing Dings 2 font and are formatted Center/Bottom.
Sample Excel formatting can be found at the bottom of the spreadsheet. Keying in Ctrl+End will
take you to the samples at the bottom of the spreadsheet. Keying in Ctrl+Home will return you to
the top of the spreadsheet.

1st Column - Rotated Text:

The sheet number is typically rotated 90° and centered vertically across
several pipe data rows.

To achieve this:
Enter the sheet number in the top cell. The text is already formatted to
be rotated 90°. Highlight the cells to be merged. Right click on the
highlighted cells. Choose Sheet Number Merge from the pop up
menu. Use this same command to restore to the standard non rotated
formatting.

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2nd Column - Times New Roman Font
The font in column B is formatted as Times New Roman 10. This font will be imported into
MicroStation as a vertical font that fits in the note bubble and is more truly centered within in the
circle.
Check Marks
To make a check mark , right click in the cell and select Check Mark Toggle from the pop up
menu. To make check marks in multiple adjoining cells, highlight a range of cells, right click on
them, and choose Check Mark Toggle. Check marks will be inserted into all the selected cells.
The command will also remove an existing checkmark. Note that columns that use check marks
are preformatted to the Wingdings 2, so a capital P letter can be entered to create a check mark.
Divider Line & Text
The diagonal divider line in the Terminal Sloped Ends column is made by selecting and
right clicking in the desired cell, and choosing Diagonal Toggle from the resulting pop up menu.
Enter the slope text beginning with an apostrophe so Excel does not try to interpret the slope as
time (Example: ‘1:3).
Repeating the right click Diagonal Toggle will cycle through the cell formatting from normal
text with no diagonal line to superscript (text above the diagonal line) and then to subscript (text
below the diagonal line).

If you have two different slopes and need to place text above as well as below the diagonal line,
you will need to put the second slope text on a separate line and reposition it in MicroStation.
(See Manual Edits section below.)
Separation Lines
To make the separation lines between sheet numbers, right click on one of the cells in the blank
row typically placed below the pipe data in each sheet and select Sheet Break Toggle from the
pop up menu. This will give you two light blue highlighted rows with a heavy border in the
middle representing the blank top and bottom row with a thickened border line to visually break
the pipe data between plan sheets.

The horizontal line between sheet numbers is one of the few elements that will have to be edited
after importing the spreadsheet into MicroStation. It will come into MicroStation with a weight

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of 2 rather than the desired weight of 4. (See Manual Edits.) Repeating the Sheet Break Toggle
command in the same row will remove the bold break line and light blue shading.

2.3 Tools
Highlight Row/Clear Line – To aid data entry and editing, a row highlight tool is available.
This feature is intended to assist you with tracking across the spreadsheet while you enter rows
of data.
Right clicking on any cell and selecting Highlight Row in the pop up menu will highlight the
row in a pale yellow. Right clicking on a cell in another row and selecting Highlight Row from
the pop up menu will move the highlight color to the newly selected row. Right clicking on any
cell and selecting Clear Highlight will remove the highlight color.

Copy Button – Each sheet has a Copy Sheet X button, with X representing the sheet number.
This button will select all the data between the two sheet titles and copy it onto the clipboard in
preparation for Microsoft Office
Importer to paste it into MicroStation.
Help Button – There is a Help button
on each sheet heading row that links to
this help document on the EAST
website.

3 Axiom Office Importer

Launch the Axiom Microsoft Office Importer software by Selecting on the word Axiom Office
Importer in the MicroStation ODOT main menu.

Reshaping the toolbar is much the same as with any MicroStation toolbar. Move the
mouse pointer over one corner of the toolbar until the small black double arrow is
visible, then click and drag the toolbar into the desired shape.

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The Microsoft Office Importer toolbar has six buttons.

The Paste button, or

Paste clipboard data into MicroStation, opens one of two dialog boxes depending on what
data you have on your clipboard. If you have copied some data from a Word document onto your
clipboard, the dialog box that opens will be the Paste Word data into MicroStation dialog box.
If you have copied data from an Excel spreadsheet, you will get the Paste Excel data into
MicroStation dialog box.
The Paste Excel charts into MicroStation button is for any of those bar charts or line chart you
have created in Excel. This is not needed to prepared Pipe Data Sheets.
The Edit button, or Edit a linked source document, opens the source document that was
previously imported into MicroStation for editing.
The Manage button, or Manage an existing link, allows you to click on elements in the
MicroStation file to pull up a corresponding dialog box that allows you to manage the link.
The List button, or List all links in active model, will pull
up a list of all the Office Importer links in the active model.
The last button Settings, or Open the Settings box, is
where you make changes to all the setting in Office
Importer.
The Help command in Microsoft Office Importer is not on
the main toolbar, but can be accessed by selecting the
Settings button, then selecting it from the menu of the
resulting Microsoft Office Importer Settings dialog box.

3.1 Links
A link is a path and file name linking the source document or Excel spreadsheet to the
MicroStation design file. Links are stored in the MicroStation design file. Selecting a link and
choosing to edit the source document with one of the methods described above will cause the
source document to open in its corresponding software and allow modifications. If the
spreadsheet is moved or renamed, the Manage tool can also be used to correct the link.

4 Importing Pipe Data Sheets into MicroStation

4.1 Importing the Spreadsheet
Open MicroStation and load your active pipe data design file (if necessary).
The first step to importing the spreadsheet is to start Axiom importer and load the settings file.
Load the Axiom Office Importer Pipe Data setting file by opening the Settings dialog box.
Select File>Load Settings from the menu. Select pipe_11.ini from the

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…\ODOT_DATA\USERCFG\data\ folder of your personal server workspace or F: drive. Click
OK.
Click on the Copy Sheet 1 button in the Excel spreadsheet. This will copy the data
from your spreadsheet into the clipboard in preparation for pasting it into MicroStation.
Select the Paste clipboard data into MicroStation button on the Office Importer toolbar.
Wait patiently for the progress bar to complete. You should now have a dashed outline on your
mouse pointer when you hover over a MicroStation view. This dashed shape represents the size
of the data to be pasted into MicroStation.
Snap to the left end of the horizontal blue line that separates the header information from the
body data in the MicroStation pipe data sheet.

Note: AccuSnap will be temporarily suspended by the paste function. You will need to tentative
snap using the middle mouse button (clicking on the wheel), or hold down the Ctrl+Shift to
enable AccuSnap to pull the cursor to the keypoint on the left end of the blue line.
Your data should be successfully pasted into the spreadsheet. Note that the text and lines are the
color 10 magenta. The magenta color is a reminder that the content is imported and could be
overwritten if the graphics are updated from the spreadsheet.

4.2 Updating
To update the data pasted into MicroStation: Select the Manage button on the Office
Importer toolbar. Click the Edit source button on the bottom of the resulting Manage
Microsoft Office Importer Link dialog box. Make the necessary changes to the Excel
spreadsheet. Save the Excel spreadsheet. Click the Update button on the bottom of
the Manage Microsoft Office Importer Link dialog box. Wait patiently for the progress bar to
complete. The data should be successfully updated.

5 Manual Edits – Important edits to be done after importing!

Some manual editing will still need to be performed on the MicroStation pipe data sheet.
Because of this, it is important to note that if elements originally imported with Office Importer
are modified in MicroStation, then subsequently updated with Office Importer, all the manual
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edits will be overwritten and lost. It is advised that any necessary edits be done after all updates
have been completed.

The Separation Line between the sections of notes

that occur on different plan sheets will import from
Microsoft Office Importer with a weight of 2 rather
than the required weight of 4. (To create the separation
line in the excel spreadsheet, see section 2.2
Formatting.) A quick method of correcting this is to
use the Power Selector tool. With Method set to Line
and Mode set to Add, drag a line down the left hand
side of the pipe data sheet carefully capturing all the separation lines and nothing else, then
change the weight to 4 by using the drop down from the Active Line Weight tool on the
Attributes toolbar.
Sheet range leaders and arrows (above and below the
sheet numbers on the left side of the pipe data sheet) will
need to be manually drawn. One method for drawing these
elements could be to set the element attributes to the
current standards (line style, weight, color, and level,
please see the CPDG Vol. 2 10-Pipe Data). then draw a
line, using the center of the sheet number text and
AccuDraw shortcut key-ins to get a reasonable offset, to
the upper sheet break line, repeating the process to the
lower sheet break line. The arrow on the end can be placed
by selecting General>Arrows>Arrow from the
ODOT>Drafting menu, then data pointing on the end of
each leader to place the terminator.

Any text that needs to be entered in the column

heading area such as the pipe size cells, or the Inlet
Types will have to be manually entered into the
MicroStation pipe data sheet as well as in the Excel
spreadsheet. The text in the header area is not copied
in to the spreadsheet but resides in the reference file
attached as described in the Volume 1 Section 8 of
the CPDG.

In the terminal sloped ends column if a pipe has slopes on

both ends, the second slope will need to be manually entered
into MicroStation. This can be accomplished by matching the
attributed of the text for the first end, then using the Place text
tool to insert the text in the appropriate location.

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6 Tips
Graphic Group
The imported spreadsheet elements are a single Graphic Group that allow highlighting or
selecting all of the imported elements when the Graphic Group Lock is enabled.
One Way Import
Data imported from a source into MicroStation using Axiom’s Microsoft Office Importer is
imported in one direction only. If the data is changed in MicroStation, it cannot be exported back
out to the source Excel file. For this reason it is recommended that all changes be made in the
source Excel file and updated in MicroStation.
Update Multiple Sheets
To update multiple sheets at once, select the List button on Microsoft Office Importer toolbox.
Select the links you want to update. Hold the Ctrl key while data pointing on the desired links.
Click the update button on the bottom of the dialog box. All the selected links will be updated.
Add rows or columns to the link
To modify the range of cells from the source file that are included the link, use the Manage tool
and change the Top-left and Bottom-right cell fields to the new range.

7 Trouble Shooting
Problem: In MicroStation, the text is yellow does not line up with grid.
Solution: The text will not match the grid lines when the pipe_11.ini settings file is not loaded in
Axiom Office Importer. This is described in the second paragraph of the 4.1 Importing the
Spreadsheet section above.

8 Configuring For Your Workstation

There are a couple of one time configuration items that you should do. Load the Pipe data.ini
file (pipe_11.ini) if it not already loaded. In the settings main menu select: File > Load Settings...

Assign the font number for the Wingdings 2 font

The Axiom office importer settings file stores the TrueType font assignments by the
MicroStation font number rather than the font name. The font number is different for each
computer. The Wingdings 2 font number used to create the check mark can be assigned as
follows:

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 1. Select the Text Category
2. Select the Font tab and the Advanced font mapping.
If the Advanced font mapping is grayed out, select another font mapping, select the
Advanced font mapping again and it should not be grayed out.
3. Select the Wingdings font group
4. Assign the Wingdings 2 for each of the four Normal, Bold, Italic, and Bold-Ital settings.
Note that your font number probably will be different.

Save your changes by selecting File > Save Settings.

Disable Automatic Update

The pipe data .ini setting file sometimes is set where all changes made in Excel (or Word) will be
automatically re-imported into MicroStation if any changes are made.

1. Select the Updating category

2. Under “When the user opens a new design file or model:”
select “Don’t update any automatic pastes”.

Save your changes by selecting File > Save Settings. Revised: 7/16/2014

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