User’s Guide — Microsoft Office Importer for Revit

Updating Revit with changes made in Excel or Word

Anyone on your team can edit your Excel spreadsheets and Word documents. Microsoft Office Importer updates your Revit models with those changes effortlessly.

Microsoft Office Importer can update your linked information in Revit:

• Whenever you open your Revit model.†
• Whenever you want to by pressing {Update} in the Microsoft Office Importer “List of Links” box.

You can use either one of those update approaches, or both of them.† To update your linked information automatically whenever a Revit model is opened:

1. Ensure your linked data is set to “Update automatically when project opens.” This setting is available when you perform your import. You can also control this setting for an existing paste in the Microsoft Office Importer “Manage Link” box.
2. Ensure Microsoft Office Importer is set to perform automatic updates. These settings are in Settings | Updating.

Chapter 9 — Technical Details

Supported Revit Versions

Microsoft Office Importer for Revit is available for the following Revit versions.

* If you want to use Microsoft Office Importer for Revit with an unsupported Revit version, we would love to hear from you! Please contact us at Support@AxiomInt.com or by calling us at 727-442-7774.

Supported Document Management Systems (Cloud Storage)

Microsoft Office Importer for Revit currently supports three document management (cloud storage) systems:

• Autodesk BIM 360*
• Microsoft SharePoint Online
• Microsoft OneDrive

* Our BIM 360 support requires that you install and use Autodesk Desktop Connector.
We could add support for additional systems in the future and we have considerable experience in this area.

Since we don’t want to create document management system support that doesn’t get used, we need to hear from you about what document management system you really need support for. Please email us at Support@AxiomInt.com or call us at 727-442-7774 to let us know!

Because we like tables — and we think you might, too — here’s one with our supported document management systems along with a few examples of unsupported systems that we could likely add support for if enough clients needed it.

Supported Windows Versions

Microsoft Office Importer for Revit should work with any version of Windows that can handle the supported Revit versions listed in the table above.

But, just in case you need it, here are the Windows versions we have tested and certified it with.

Supported Languages (English, French, etc.)

Windows comes in different languages. Each language has its own Windows installer — it’s not something you can choose on the fly or when you boot up your computer.

Revit is more versatile. You can run Revit in any one of its supported languages without a language-specific installation or language add-on package.

Microsoft Office Importer should work fine with any Windows and Revit languages. But, just in case, here is a table of the languages we have already tested it with. In this table, the combinations of Windows and Revit languages are not important — Windows and Revit are independent and you can mix and match them as far as language goes.

* If you’re running into any problem with Microsoft Office Importer, language-related or otherwise, please let us know by calling 727-442-7774 or emailing Support@AxiomInt.com.

Supported Source Applications (Excel, Word)

Microsoft Office Importer for Revit supports pasting from Excel spreadsheets and Word documents. Even Word tables are supported!

Here is a table of supported source applications and versions:

* Microsoft Office Importer for Revit works with locally installed versions of Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word. It does not work with Excel and Word versions that run via a web browser and it does not work with other source applications.

** Microsoft Office Importer for Revit needs Excel and Word — and Revit — to be installed and running on your local computer. Running Excel or Word on one computer and Revit on a different computer will not work, even if you are viewing the other computer through screen sharing software such as Remote Desktop.

Unsupported Source File Data

The following types of data are not supported when importing from Excel and Word:

• Images
• Excel charts (graphs)
• Vector graphics (“AutoShapes”)

If you’d like us to add support for any of those, please email us at Support@AxiomInt.com!

Supported Revit Destinations for Excel/Word Imports

Microsoft Office Importer for Revit can import data from Excel and Word into

• Sheets
• Drafting Views
• Legends
• Floor Plans
• Area Plans
• Ceiling Plans
• Engineering Plans

If you need the ability to import into any other part of a Revit project, please let us know by emailing us at Support@AxiomInt.com.

Supported Excel/Word Formatting

This table lists the primary formatting supported by Microsoft Office Importer for Revit. In a few cases, we demonstrate the specific formatting in the first column below (like making “Bold” look like “Bold”).

Formatting is honored when creating a paste and also whenever Microsoft Office Importer updates that paste later to bring your changes from Excel or Word into Revit.

Protected Excel Worksheets and Workbooks

Microsoft Office Importer can import text from protected Excel worksheets (“tabs”) and protected Excel workbooks (spreadsheets). See next heading for protected mode, which is something entirely different.

Spreadsheets and Documents Opened in Protected Mode

Protected mode is not the same as Excel’s ability to protect a worksheet (a “tab”) or a workbook (a whole spreadsheet).

To perform imports and updates, Microsoft Office Importer needs to communicate with Excel and Word. If the document is (or would be) opened in protected mode, this communication is usually impossible.

Be sure spreadsheets and Word documents are not opened in protected mode before pasting from them. When updating, ensure the linked (pasted from) Excel spreadsheet or Word document would not open in protected mode if you were to open it directly.

Supported Features

This table clarifies what input data some popular Microsoft Office Importer features support.

† This column includes all Excel pastes — those done as schedule graphics and those done as text notes and lines.

Excel Input Ranges (Selected Cells)

Microsoft Office Importer for Revit allows you to copy/paste supported data from any selected Excel cells, as long as they’re not hidden. Here’s a teensy table on this for you table lovers:

Adding or Removing Rows or Columns in Excel

Do you ever add rows or columns in Excel after pasting from that spreadsheet into Revit? Do you want the new rows or columns to show up in Revit, or do you want the cell range in Revit to remain the same as when you created that paste? There’s no single right answer here, so we support both.

What you select in Excel when creating your paste dictates what will happen in Revit when someone adds (or removes) rows or columns from that Excel spreadsheet later.

Named Cell Range Tip: To learn about named Excel cell ranges, see this web page: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Define-and-use-names-in-formulas-4d0f13ac-53b7-422e-afd2-abd7ff379c64#bmquickly_name_a_cell_or_range_of_cells

* More About Selecting “All” Cells in Excel

When you press {Ctrl-A} in Excel, it sometimes doesn’t select the whole worksheet, instead only selecting the current group of populated cells. Hitting {Ctrl-A} a second time when this happens will select the whole worksheet.
Or you can hit the (unnamed) Excel button above row 1 and to the left of column A to select the whole worksheet every time:

Adding or Removing Text in Word Documents

Do you ever add new text in Word after pasting from that document into Revit? Do you want the new text to show up in Revit? Here’s what you need to know.

When you paste from a Word document into Revit, Microsoft Office Importer creates a bookmark around that copied text in your Word document. This way only the text you selected is linked to your Revit project file. You don’t have to paste the whole Word document into Revit, which is pretty awesome.

But Microsoft Office Importer updates the data in Revit with changes made in the source document. Will newly added text in the linked Word document come into Revit on the next update, or will it be omitted from Revit? The answer is: Whatever you type inside the bookmark range will come into Revit on the next update. Text outside the bookmark will not come into Revit.

Here is a good article about Microsoft Word bookmarks:

https://word.tips.net/T001014_Understanding_and_Using_Bookmarks.html

But when you make changes to the Word document later, what text will be inside that bookmark and what text will not? Here’s how this works:

• Text you type inside the range of that bookmark after creating your paste in Revit will be brought into Revit during the next update linked to that particular bookmark by Microsoft Office Importer.
• Text you type outside the range of that bookmark in the future will not come into Revit when Microsoft Office Importer updates the text linked to that Word bookmark in Revit.

Microsoft Office Importer names its bookmarks OLE_LINK1, OLE_LINK2 and so on.

What text you select and copy in Word when creating your paste dictates what will happen in Revit when someone adds (or removes) rows or columns from that Excel spreadsheet later.

After adding/removing data inside the scope of Microsoft Office Importer’s OLE_LINKn bookmark in your Word document and then updating the linked data in your Revit project, the range of the pasted Word data in your project pointing to that Word bookmark will grow/reduce automatically. Unlike Excel pastes, there are no exceptions to this as Microsoft Office Importer uses a Word bookmark to define its paste range.

This is also discussed in the Troubleshooting section of this guide.

What We Store in Revit (Output Formats)

Word Documents

Microsoft Office Importer for Revit always imports Word document data into Revit as text notes and lines in detail groups. (Its powerful, automatic linking features are described elsewhere in this guide.)

Excel Spreadsheets

You can import Excel spreadsheet data into Revit as either of the following:

• Default: Schedule graphics (only available when importing into a sheet)
• Text notes and lines in detail groups (available everywhere you can import Excel data)

If you import from Excel into a sheet, Microsoft Office Importer for Revit imports that (by default) as linked schedules. These schedules are then referenced into your chosen Revit sheet as “schedule graphics” automatically when your paste is created.

Settings | Pasting | Paste Excel files as:

If you want your Excel data imported as schedule graphics, it has to be imported into a sheet and Paste Excel files as: must be set to “Schedules (Fastest)” (the default).

If you want your Excel data imported into a sheet as text notes and lines in detail groups, change Settings | Pasting | Paste Excel files as: from “Schedules (Fastest)” to “Lines and Text”.

This setting

• Only applies to Excel pastes into sheets. Excel pastes anywhere but sheets are always as text notes and lines in detail groups.
• Has no impact on Word imports, which are always text notes and lines in detail groups.
• Has no impact on linking.

Different Names for the Same Thing

Revit has multiple names for these references connecting schedule information to sheets. Here’s what we’ve seen them called:

• Revit’s user interface calls these “schedule graphics” (so that’s what we call them).
• Revit’s programming interface calls these “schedule sheet instances.”
• Revit’s documentation calls these “schedule view instances.”

Take your pick!

Chapter 10 — Advanced Topics

Mapping Excel line weights and line styles to Revit weights and styles

Microsoft Office Importer for Revit creates its own line styles which are named as follows:

• OFIMP_<StyleName> — for default lines.
• OFIMP_<StyleName>_B — for bold lines.
• OFIMP_<StyleName>_BB — for double-bold lines.

Excel only has those three bold line variants. <StyleName> can take one of the following values:

• SOLID
• DOT
• DASH
• DASH_SMALL
• DOT_DASH
• DOT_DOT_DASH

Revit’s “Line Styles” box showing some examples of the line styles used by Microsoft Office Importer for Revit

Once created, those OFIMP_* styles are not modified by Microsoft Office Importer for Revit during future pastes and updates. So there are two approaches to choose from:

1. Pre-create OFIMP styles in your project template file and assign your desired line weights to them. Or
2. Paste an Excel file that contains various line weights and line styles. Then go to Manage | Settings | Additional Settings | Line Styles, find OFIMP_<StyleName> or OFIMP_<StyleName>_B or OFIMP_<StyleName>_BB line styles and assign your desired line weights and line styles there. That modification impacts all existing pastes and remains in force for all subsequent pastes/updates in that RVT file.

If you have any questions about this, please contact Axiom Support at 727-442-7774 or Support@AxiomInt.com. We are happy to help.

Word’s Paragraph Setting “Keep with next”

Microsoft Office Importer for Revit 5.1a adds support for Word’s paragraph setting “Keep with next”.

Use the Word paragraph setting “Keep with next” to keep paragraphs and table rows together when using Microsoft Office Importer’s “Split paste into columns” feature.

Microsoft Excel does not have a “Keep with next” setting, so our “Keep with next” support applies only to imports from Microsoft Word documents.

Our “Keep with next” support works with text inside Word tables and text outside of Word tables.

Keeping Word document paragraphs together

If you set a paragraph to “Keep with next” in Word’s Paragraph” settings box, Microsoft Office Importer will keep that paragraph and the following paragraph together when you use our “Split paste into columns” feature.

Keeping Word document table rows together

Microsoft Office Importer’s “Split paste into columns” feature does not break individual Word table rows into multiple rows, even if a row contains multiple paragraphs.

In Word tables, set “Keep with next” on the first paragraph in any cell (any column) in a row to keep that whole row “glued” to the row below it. If you later remove the “Keep with next” property from that paragraph and update the paste from the source document, future updates to that paste will separate those rows as needed.

Note: It is not necessary to set “Keep with next” on all the paragraphs in a cell — setting it on the first paragraph of any cell in a given row is sufficient to “stick” that row to the row below it.

It is not necessary to set “Keep with next” on the first paragraph of more than one cell in a row — setting it on the first paragraph of any cell in that row is sufficient.

Vertically Merged Word Table Cells

Technical Deep Dive Warning: The following might be more detail than you want regarding this subject. Conversely, this might be all the detail you never knew you wanted!

Microsoft Word is slightly different from Microsoft Office Importer in that Microsoft Word requires you to set “Keep with next” on the first paragraph of the leftmost cell in a row if you want that row to be “stuck” to the row below it. That’s pretty good most of the time, but what if that cell is merged with the cell above it? In that case:

If you set “Keep with next” in the first paragraph of any cell in a Word table row that has any cells merged vertically into a row above them, our “Keep with next” for the row applies to the vertically merged rows above that row.

Our approach is the same as Word’s own behavior, with one very subtle improvement:

Word requires you to set “Keep with next” on the first paragraph of the first cell (leftmost column) in order to keep that row with the row below it. That’s fine, except when your first/leftmost cell in that row is vertically merged into the cell above it. In that case, Word will separate the merged rows across two pages, which we don’t think is excellent behavior. It’s not that big of a deal either.

This is a small improvement upon Word’s behavior with no discernible (to us) drawbacks. We hope you like it and we commend you for reading this far!

Chapter 11 — Troubleshooting

Microsoft Office Importer for Revit is missing a feature I need or want.

We want Microsoft Office Importer to be so good at helping you get Excel and Word data into Revit that you can’t imagine Revit life without it. If you need a new feature, need something changed, or if you are having any kind of difficulty, please contact us at Support@AxiomInt.com or by calling 727-442-7774.

Text in Revit is the wrong size (too big or too small).

We really want our Scale settings to give you the fine control you need to attain perfect text size. Please email Support@AxiomInt.com or call us at 727-442-7774 and we will be happy to help you get your text size settings perfect.

Fully-justified Word text imports and updates very slowly. But Word text with any other justification imports and updates fast!

The problem is a shortcoming in Revit that prevents us from speeding up the process of importing fully-justified text.

Because Revit doesn't have full justification as a property of text note objects, we have to break the text notes up into many smaller text notes (one text note per word) to fully justify them. This is very slow in Revit (which is actually another problem specific to Revit.) The same solution is fast in Microsoft Office Importer for MicroStation and unnecessary in Microsoft Office Importer for AutoCAD (since AutoCAD supports the notion of full justification in mtext).

Some pasted Excel text is incomplete in Revit and ends in three dots (“…”)

More search terms for this: ellipsis, ellipses, truncated, truncation, three dots, three periods, doesn’t fit, cut off, column, widen, width, wider, scale, size

This is how Revit handles text in a Microsoft Office Importer paste that is too wide for its column. To fix or avoid this, you have multiple options:

• Open the linked spreadsheet in Excel and make this column wider. Then update the paste in Revit with Microsoft Office Importer. You do not have to re-create your paste for this one.
• Open the linked spreadsheet in Excel and give this cell or its column the “Wrap Text” property. Then give it sufficient row height that the data fits when pasted into Revit. Update the paste in Revit with Microsoft Office Importer.
• Re-create your paste with a higher “Width Padding” value to make all pasted columns (not just this column) wider.

Here are a few more options, but these are various degrees of “out there”:

• Re-create your paste with a smaller absolute (mapped) text size setting but the same text scaling factor for this text’s input size in points (since the scale factor defines the column widths and row heights). If you need to nail an exact text size in Revit, don’t use this one.
• Open the linked spreadsheet in Excel and make the text smaller in point size, without changing your scale settings in Microsoft Office Importer. If you need to nail an exact text size in Revit, don’t use this one.
• Edit the text in Excel to fit when pasted into Revit. (This one is completely “out there.” We don’t recommend it.)

Word doc paste no longer linked, or update shows wrong data in Revit.

Be sure nobody turned off Settings | Linking | [x] Save Word documents after creating link:

If somebody turned that setting off, then it is possible you didn’t save your Word document after importing it into Revit with Microsoft Office Importer. This step is essential because the import action creates a bookmark in the Word document, which we link to. This requires the document to be saved after the paste is done, or else that bookmark is not available to use for future updates from that Word document.

Pinning Imported Data

If you place a pin on one or more pages of an Microsoft Office Importer for Revit paste, it will not prevent that paste from being updated with changes made to the source file and it will not prevent it from being deleted by the {Delete} button in the list of links box.

Updating a paste removes any pins.

If you would like Microsoft Office Importer to handle pins differently, please let us know at Support@AxiomInt.com.

Chapter 12 — We’ll Make (Almost) Any Enhancements You Want

We Welcome Your Suggestions

Microsoft Office Importer for Revit is a powerful program. Nonetheless, we realize that you, a skilled and creative BIM user, will think of ways in which it can be improved. We invite you to tell us your ideas.

For over thirty years we’ve listened to you, the skilled BIM or CAD professional, and have implemented the features you’ve requested. Every widely acclaimed product we’ve ever developed evolved in this manner.
We’d like to make Microsoft Office Importer perform every function you could ever imagine such a product being able to do. We intend to make you such a satisfied Microsoft Office Importer customer that you can’t wait for the next user group meeting so you can tell your friends and associates how much you like Microsoft Office Importer and how strongly you recommend it.

Your suggestions on how to improve Microsoft Office Importer are most welcome.