Importing plant catalog data from a spreadsheet
You can import your own plant catalog data from a spreadsheet program, such as Microsoft Excel. The columns in the spreadsheet must be in a specific order to map to the plant catalog correctly. Use an existing file provided with Vectorworks to obtain the correct columns and column order, as described below.
You can also import data from a spreadsheet to the plant database, as described in Importing plant database information.
To import plant catalog data from a spreadsheet:
With the plant data source set to Plant Catalog, select Landmark > Open Plant Data.
The Plant Data dialog box opens.
If you have not yet chosen the plant data source, the Choose Plant Data Source dialog box opens. Select Plant Catalog as the plant data source and click OK to initialize the plant catalog. The Plant Data dialog box then opens.
Click Explore to open the folder where Vectorworks saved the plant data.
Open the _CatalogFileConfig.xml in Notepad or another text editing program that works with .xml elements. (Microsoft Word does not open this file correctly.)
The PlantCatalogDef list displays the required column order for the spreadsheet data. When you set up your custom spreadsheet of plant data, you must follow the same column order.
In a spreadsheet program, set up the required columns and input the plant data. Every column must be present in the spreadsheet, but individual cells can be left empty for plants that do not have data for every column.
If you used a header row to help input the data into the correct columns, delete the header row from the spreadsheet.
Save the spreadsheet as a .txt file.
If the folder where the plant data is saved is not open, open it again by selecting Landmark > Open Plant Data and clicking Explore in the Plant Data dialog box.
Drag and drop the .txt file into the folder.
The new plant catalog is available for use. Select the .txt file from the Plant Data dialog box by clicking Explore.
