This topic covers the configuration options for the PCD2Excel Wizard.
The PCD2Excel Wizard (PCD2excel.exe) is no longer supported and is no longer available from the user interface. It does not support Geometric Tolerance commands. Please use the Excel Form Report instead (Insert | Report Command | Excel Form Report).
For details on how to use the Excel Form Report, see the "Using the Excel Form Report Command" section of the PC-DMIS Toolkit Modules documentation.
While we recommend that you use the Excel Form Report above, the PCD2Excel Wizard is still available in the "C:\Program Files\Hexagon\PC-DMIS 2023.1 64-bit\en" folder of the PC-DMIS installation location.
The PCD2Excel Wizard will be removed in a future version.
The available configuration options are:
Active measurement routine - Displays the name of your current measurement routine.
Output file - Defines the file name and location. The File name box defines the name of the Microsoft Excel file to which the output is sent. You can type the full pathway, or you can click Browse to locate and select an existing file name.
Type - Defines the output type. It contains these options:
Excel - Sends the output to an Excel formatted file.
CSV - Sends the output to a plain text Comma Separated Value (CSV) file. You can choose a different delimiting character in Separator.
Show Excel - If marked, Excel appears during the export process. If cleared, Excel runs hidden in the background.
Separator - Determines the separator, or delimiting character, to use when exporting to a CSV file. The default is a comma character (,).
Overwrite mode - Defines what happens when data is sent to an existing file.
No - Existing dimensional data is not overwritten. New values for existing dimensions are ignored. Only entirely new dimensions are added to the output file.
Yes - Existing dimensional data is overwritten with the latest information.
Add - Existing data is not overwritten with new values. The new values for existing dimensions are appended.
Export multiple instances - Determines the order in which multiple instances of a feature being executed appear in the exported file. Multiple instances result when a feature is executed multiple times due to a loop or some other execution branching.
By position - Multiple instances are exported using their top to bottom position in the measurement routine.
By execution - Multiple instances are exported based on the execution order of the last time the measurement routine was executed. For example, a branching conditional statement that skips over some dimensions during execution causes intervening dimensions to be ignored in this export as well.
PC-DMIS statistics - Determines if PC-DMIS STATS/ON or TRACEFIELD commands are required to export the data.
Use STATS/ON and STATS/OFF - If marked, you must include dimension (or Feature Control Frame dimension) commands between the STATS/ON and STATS/OFF commands in your measurement routine, otherwise the wizard will not export data to the Excel file. If you clear this check box, all dimension commands get exported into the Excel file. See the "Tracking Statistical Data" chapter.
Use TRACEFIELD - This becomes available for selection if you use STATS/ON and STATS/OFF.
Headers - Determines how the header data for the measurement routine is written to the output file.
Measurement routine name - If marked, the measurement routine names are included in the output file.
Short - The file name is a shortened format and shows just the file name not the full pathway.
Full - The file name includes the full pathway.
Part name - If marked, the part name is included in the output file.
Revision number - If marked, the revision number is included in the output file.
Serial number - If marked, the serial number is included in the output file.
Statistic count - If marked, the number of transactions or runs is included in the output file.
Data and time - If marked, the current date and time are included in the output file.
Dimension - Determines how the dimensional data appears in the output.
By row - Dimensions are laid out horizontally
By column - Dimensions are laid out vertically.
Header start row and column - Defines the starting location where you want the header information to appear. The values of 2 and 2 mean it begins the second row down and the second column to the right.
Data start row and column - Defines the starting location where you want the dimensional data to appear. The values of 9 and 2 means it begins on the ninth row in the second column.
Ignore FCFs - If marked, PC-DMIS does not pass Feature Control Frame commands to the Excel file. See the "Using Geometric Tolerances" chapter.
Units - If marked, the measurement units used by each dimension are included in the export. For example, angle measurements show DEG for degrees, size measurements show MM for millimeters or IN for inches.
Fields label - Determines how labels appear next to data fields in the output.
Once - Field labels appear only once after the heading information and before all the dimensions are listed. These are either column headings or row headings based on the By row or By column setting.
Always - Field labels appear before each dimension.
All fields - If you mark Always, this check box becomes available for selection. If you mark All Fields, all the labels appear. These are: DIMENSION, DESCRIPTION, FEATURE, AXIS, SEGMENT, NOMINALS, MEAS, +TOL, -TOL, BONUS, DEV, OUTTOL, DEVANG, Datum Shift Effect, Unused Zone, Shift X, Shift Y, Shift Z, Rotation X, Rotation Y, and Rotation Z.
If cleared, only these labels appear: DIMENSION, DESCRIPTION, AXIS, NOMINALS, MEAS, +TOL, -TOL, DEV, and OUTTOL.
Blank row/column between dimensions - If marked, this inserts a blank row after each dimension.
Defaults - This button creates a defaults file (Defaults.p2x) that stores this dialog box's settings. When you click this button, PC-DMIS automatically updates the contents of the defaults file without showing a message.
PC-DMIS uses this defaults file in these cases:
For new measurement routines
For the current measurement routine if PC-DMIS cannot locate the routine-specific settings file (Note that PC-DMIS creates a routine-specific .p2x file in the same directory as the measurement routine whenever you first access this dialog box. It then modifies that routine-specific file whenever you click Continue.)
PC-DMIS attempts to save the Defaults.p2x file in a Wizards folder under where you installed PC-DMIS. You need to first create the Wizards folder inside the installation folder. If that folder doesn't exist, nothing happens when you click Defaults. You can view this defaults file in any text editor.
Running the Wizard Unattended
You can tell PC-DMIS to run the PCD2Excel wizard without any human intervention. After configuring the wizard, insert EXTERNALCOMMAND into your measurement routine and add an 'A' parameter to the command so that it looks something like this:
EXTERNALCOMMAND/DISPLAY ; C:\Program Files\Hexagon\PC-DMIS 2023.1 64-bit\en\Wizards\PCD2EXCEL.EXE A
This tells the wizard to run in unattended mode. If you're using a non-English version, instead of "en" in the pathway, use the two-letter subdirectory for your language.