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Author:

LaszloNagy

Creation Date:

2006-04-25

ArchiCAD versions:

• ArchiCAD 10

Platform:

• Mac OS X
• Windows

Audience:

• average users
• power users
• CAD managers

Reference:

• [tracking number]

OLE Drawings could not be converted

This Conversion warning may appear when opening a PlotMaker Layout Book in ArchiCAD 10. It usually displays the following message:

OLE Drawings could not be converted. (4 drawings)
The converted .lbk file contains OLE drawings. ArchiCAD does not support OLE technology, so we cannot import these drawings correctly. (If the OLE drawing was embedded in the .lbk file, you will see the picture of the drawing, but you cannot update it.) You can identify OLE drawings using the Drawing Manager palette: look for the OLE icon in the Type column. We suggest that you replace OLE drawings with PDF files.

The problem occurred with these drawings:
Apartment Listing.xls
Apartment Listing.xls-2
Apartment Listing.xls-3
Apartment Listing.xls-4

Let us say that you have a PlotMaker 9 Layout Book you wish to migrate to ArchiCAD 10.
One Layout of the Layout Book contains Drawings displaying portions of Excel tables that are OLE-linked to these Drawings.

PM9-XLSFiles.png

If you open this Layout Book in ArchiCAD 10, you can go to the Drawing Manager to see the status of Drawings. In the Type column of the Drawing Manager you can see that there are 4 OLE-linked Drawings.

OLEInDrawingManager.png

In such a case – since ArchiCAD 10 does not support OLE – the content of these Drawings will be included in the ArchiCAD 10 Project File, and these Drawings will no longer be linked to their source files (e.g. an Excel File).

OLEInDrawingManager-2.png

In order to be able to maintain some kind of an updateable link between the Excel File and the placed Drawings, you can re-link these Drawings to PDF Files saved from the Excel file. You can do this the following way:

  1. From the source file (e.g. Excel File) save the needed portions linked to PlotMaker as PDF files.

    SavePDFFromXLS.png

  2. After all necessary files are saved as PDF, go to the Drawing Manager in ArchiCAD 10, and select the first broken OLE-linked Drawing in the list. Click the Link Drawing To… button. A Dialog will open, where you need to choose the an external source radio button, and click the Browse… button.

    LinkDrawingTo.png

  3. In the appearing Dialog, select from the PDF Files you just saved the one containing data needed for that Drawing’ content. Click the Open button to execute the re-linking operation.

    DrawingRelinked.png

  4. Do this with all previously OLE-linked Drawings. When the Drawing is re-linked to the content of a PDF file instead of a portion of an Excel File page, it is possible that the position of the contents of the Drawing will be shifted somewhat or considerably.

    RelinkedDrawingShifted.png

  5. In order to remedy this, select the shifted Drawing, and click anywhere within its frame to drag it into it correct position. Do this with all affected re-linked Drawings. After you finished this step, you should have the same data in the Drawings you had before re-linking.

    RelinkedDrawingMoved.png

    In the Drawing Manager, it can now be seen that all these Drawings are linked to PDF Drawings. Any time the source Excel File changes, you can resave the PDF files from it, and you can update the contents of their corresponding Drawings in ArchiCAD 10’s Drawing Manager.

    OLEDrawingsRelinked.png


CategoryLayouting, CategorySetup

Archicad 10/Project Migration/OLE Drawings could not be converted (last edited 2008-08-27 15:10:44 by localhost)