Splitting worksheets to fit the page layout

[konst]

Hi everybody

any idea how to split a landscape mass planting table -worksheet that is too long - to fit in my page layout...???...scaling is not the solution as will scale the text....

Thanks in advance

Edited July 15, 2020 by konst

[Pat Stanford]

Really only two ways that might work.

 

1. All VW.  Put the worksheet on a separate Layer and then create multiple cropped viewport to show what needs to be in each column. Any time you change the number of rows in the worksheet you will also need to change the crops.

 

2. External. Export the worksheet to something like Excel and use the formatting functions there to get your page breaks where you need them. Print each Excel page to a separate PDF file and reference those files back into VW. When you change the data in VW you will have to export again and print to PDF again, but if you use the same file names then you should be able to update the referenced files and get what you need.

 

HTH.

[konst]

Thanks a lot Pat...I wish there was a simpler way to do that but apparently not.....I have already tried the excel export but it's really annoying if you have to change something and then you have to restart the whole process again....the corp thing isn t functioning as it VW don't allow me to do so....or am I mistaken ?....I Ve tried splitting in different view ports of the table but it's also complicated.....thanks a lot for your time ....maybe VW creators should look at that more carefully 

Regards 

Konstantinos 

[Pat Stanford]

For the Crop, place the entire worksheet image on an empty layer. Draw a Rectangle around the portion you want in the first Column and leave it selected. View:Create Viewport. Say yes when it asks if you want to use the selected object as the crop object. You should get a viewport that only displays the items inside the crop object.

 

If you don't get the dialog box asking and you don't end up with a cropped viewport, then at sometime you said No and to Always Do this option. To undo that selection go to Vectorworks Preferences:Session pane and click the Reset Saved Setting... button in the upper right.  Unfortunately you can't select which ones to reset. You have to reset them all. After that you get to respond to the options again. Maybe good if you set it to Always Do and then forgot there was even an option.

[Boh]

Another possible option would be to have 2 or 3 seperate worksheets each with slightly different database criteria so that you can split your data into 2 or 3 groups. Perhaps some additional Boolean record fields like “show in wksht 1”, “show in wksht 2” Etc. You cld then These fields as criteria for inclusion in the wksht.

 

Downside it is harder to do calculations between items on different worksheets.

[Jeff Prince]

@konst Here's a variation on @Pat Stanford's idea of putting worksheets on different layers....

 

Why not put the landscape areas on different classes or design layers?  You could group the mass plantings into logical design layers or classes and then create different worksheets and use criteria to report their findings from those specific design layers or classes.  I can see how this could be helpful on very large projects where you only want to report the plants in a certain area, so maybe it would be an effective work around for you?  Attached is a quickie example.  Keep in mind, I don't really use landscape areas and had never used criteria to filter a report until I saw your post and became intrigued. In other words, it's an easy solution 🙂

 

PLANT AREA WITH CRITERIA TO BREAK UP LARGE REPORTS.vwx

[konst]

@jeff prince ....thanks a lot Jeff...thats the best solution but for some unknown reason to me the table comes out as i am showing in the attached file , although i ve separated my planting areas in three different landscape areas with different name and on a different layer....i ll try to find the bug ....

[konst]

7 hours ago, Pat Stanford said:

For the Crop, place the entire worksheet image on an empty layer. Draw a Rectangle around the portion you want in the first Column and leave it selected. View:Create Viewport. Say yes when it asks if you want to use the selected object as the crop object. You should get a viewport that only displays the items inside the crop object.

 

If you don't get the dialog box asking and you don't end up with a cropped viewport, then at sometime you said No and to Always Do this option. To undo that selection go to Vectorworks Preferences:Session pane and click the Reset Saved Setting... button in the upper right.  Unfortunately you can't select which ones to reset. You have to reset them all. After that you get to respond to the options again. Maybe good if you set it to Always Do and then forgot there was even an option.

Thanks Pat that works...!!!!

[Jeff Prince]

@konst Post a file with your report format and the landscape area,  I'll take a look at it.  The bug is probably in there in the criteria.

[konst]

1 hour ago, jeff prince said:

@konst Post a file with your report format and the landscape area,  I'll take a look at it.  The bug is probably in there in the criteria.

Jeff thanks for your interest...the only way to send you the file is by wetransfer as its a quite large file(75mb).........other wise i have to change quite a few things before posting on this site

 

[Jeff Prince]

@konst just copy and paste the landscape areas and worksheets into a new file, switch the landscape area to 2D if you are using 3D plants, and purge before saving.   That should make it pretty small.  No need to post the whole design file for trouble shooting the worksheet.  Did you check that file I posted for you?  It had the Landscape areas on different classes and 3 unique worksheets with criteria set to report those classes.  I was impressed by how easy it was, worksheets are my weakness and this has been a good learning experience 🙂

[konst]

18 minutes ago, konst said:

Jeff thanks for your interest...the only way to send you the file is by wetransfer as its a quite large file(75mb).........other wise i have to change quite a few things before posting on this site

 

i finally found out the bug in the criteria...i assigned the layers to be a specific landscape area and that works perfectly....thank very much for your time 

Konstantinos

[Jeff Prince]

@konst  glad it worked for you!  It was an interesting challenge.

[Shane W]

On 7/16/2020 at 10:46 AM, Pat Stanford said:

For the Crop, place the entire worksheet image on an empty layer. Draw a Rectangle around the portion you want in the first Column and leave it selected. View:Create Viewport. Say yes when it asks if you want to use the selected object as the crop object. You should get a viewport that only displays the items inside the crop object.

 

If you don't get the dialog box asking and you don't end up with a cropped viewport, then at sometime you said No and to Always Do this option. To undo that selection go to Vectorworks Preferences:Session pane and click the Reset Saved Setting... button in the upper right.  Unfortunately you can't select which ones to reset. You have to reset them all. After that you get to respond to the options again. Maybe good if you set it to Always Do and then forgot there was even an option.

@Pat Stanford I tried this method but it didn't work.
The second viewport (for the lower half of the worksheet) is always blank. 
I'm not sure what's going on but there seems to be something about Worksheets and that top left corner where the "data is" (you can see teh highlighted bit in the attached image).

So the first viewport captures the sheet because it sees the data, whereas the second half doesn't. 
Is this a quirk or a setting I can adjust? 

Edited June 9, 2022 by Shane W

[line-weight]

14 hours ago, Shane W said:

@Pat Stanford I tried this method but it didn't work.
The second viewport (for the lower half of the worksheet) is always blank. 
I'm not sure what's going on but there seems to be something about Worksheets and that top left corner where the "data is" (you can see teh highlighted bit in the attached image).

So the first viewport captures the sheet because it sees the data, whereas the second half doesn't. 
Is this a quirk or a setting I can adjust? 

 

I don't understand what the second image is showing - what are the blue boxes?

 

As for the first one, the "successful" viewport on the left, I'd just duplicate that, then adjust the crop on the duplicate so it only takes in the bottom part of your worksheet, this will give you a viewport that's not in the location you want but you can then just move this alongside the other one.

 

I use this approach quite often - it's a pain to have to do it, and there ought to be a better way, and people have asked for this for some time, but with no success.

[Pat Stanford]

Another way to try.  Create a single viewport and then use the Split tool in By Line mode to cut the viewport into two pieces.

 

When I just did this in VW2022 SP3.1 my "bottom" viewport was empty also.  I went into Edit Crop mode and then exited without changing anything and all of the data appeared.

 

Try entering and exiting Edit Crop mode.

[Pat Stanford]

Actually I just tried it more and this edit crop is not very reliable either. I don't have any other good suggestions. Hopefully Edit Crop works for you.

[TomKen]

@Pat Stanford  Wow,  I did not know you could split a viewport.  Just tried and it works easy.

[Shane W]

On 6/11/2022 at 1:00 AM, line-weight said:

 

I don't understand what the second image is showing - what are the blue boxes?

 

As for the first one, the "successful" viewport on the left, I'd just duplicate that, then adjust the crop on the duplicate so it only takes in the bottom part of your worksheet, this will give you a viewport that's not in the location you want but you can then just move this alongside the other one.

 

I use this approach quite often - it's a pain to have to do it, and there ought to be a better way, and people have asked for this for some time, but with no success.

Yeah that was what I was doing and it didn't work. (the blue boxes were simply rectangles that I had set aside to duplicate for use as viewports - so I didn't inadvertently crop the wrong areas and miss a row etc).

 

[Shane W]

On 6/11/2022 at 5:02 AM, Pat Stanford said:

Actually I just tried it more and this edit crop is not very reliable either. I don't have any other good suggestions. Hopefully Edit Crop works for you.

Thanks Pat, I'll give it a try when I get a second. 

[Anders Blomberg]

There's also a plug-in, described here.