How to Import AutoCAD Drawings Directly into Word Documents Jeffrey Donnell The George W.

Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering

HOW TO IMPORT AUTOCAD DRAWINGS DIRECTLY INTO WORD DOCUMENTS

Jeffrey Donnell The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering The Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, GA 30332

Summary This document reviews the steps that a beginner should take in order to import an AutoCAD drawing file directly into a Word or PowerPoint file. Specifically, this document explains: 1) How to adjust the drawings background color. 2) How to use Words tools to import the AutoCAD drawing. 3) How to adjust the Word display of the imported drawing. 4) How to use Words tools to insert a figure number and caption.

How to Import AutoCAD Drawings Directly into Word Documents Jeffrey Donnell The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering

Other presentations here show you how to 1) export drawings as bitmaps or metafiles for later import into Word and 2) insert AutoCAD drawings using familiar copy-and-paste procedures. When you export your drawings as bitmaps or metafiles, you have a simple and effective method of transporting drawings, but you must convert your files in a way that limits flexibility. When you insert drawings through a copy-and-paste operation, you use a reasonably quick and simple method for moving drawings, and you maintain some flexibility for making adjustments to your drawings. A third method of transporting drawings is available--importing AutoCAD drawings directly into Word. This method for obtaining drawings offers maximum flexibility, but you it can cost you some time in tweaking your Word and AutoCAD settings in order to get various versions of the two programs to cooperate. With this caution about the problems associated with importing CAD drawings into Word, we will demonstrate how you might do so. You have made this drawing in AutoCAD, and you need to insert it into a report that is prepared in Word:

To obtain an adequate display, you must first adjust the background color to white for the hardcopy presentation. Second you must size and save the image. Third, you must invoke Words import functions and locate the drawing file. After the drawing appears in your Word document, you may elect to adjust the display. Finally you will apply a caption to the drawing. This document will walk you through these steps.

How to Import AutoCAD Drawings Directly into Word Documents Jeffrey Donnell The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering

1: Adjusting the background for display To change the background color, you first open AutoCADs Options dialog:

Select the Display tab, and select Colors under Window Elements. A Color Options dialog box will open, as shown at the right of this screen. Here the pull-down members give you access to a number of areas in CADs display; Here we set the Model Tab background to White. We will then select the Apply and Close button.

How to Import AutoCAD Drawings Directly into Word Documents Jeffrey Donnell The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering

After selecting Apply and Close, we are returned to the Options Dialog:

Here we have applied the light background to the drawing, and the display behind the dialog box obviously reflects the change. We now select OK to exit the options box. We will next save the file and then we will import that saved file into Word.

How to Import AutoCAD Drawings Directly into Word Documents Jeffrey Donnell The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering

2) Import the Drawing Open your word Word document and place the cursor at the location where the drawing should appear in the report. Pull down Words Insert menu and select Object, as indicated below:

How to Import AutoCAD Drawings Directly into Word Documents Jeffrey Donnell The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering

When Object is selected, Word will present the Insert Object dialog box. Here, you can notify Word of the file type that you intend to access, and from the Create New tab, you have the opportunity to create new graphic elements by calling up the programs themselves. The AutoCAD file that we want to import has already been created, so we notify Word that an AutoCAD drawing file will be used, and we select the Create from File tab in order to locate that file.

How to Import AutoCAD Drawings Directly into Word Documents Jeffrey Donnell The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering

The Create from File dialog allows you to enter the files full path into a form or to browse for the file that you want to use. We choose to browse:

How to Import AutoCAD Drawings Directly into Word Documents Jeffrey Donnell The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering

Words Browse dialog opens, allowing you to navigate to the directory and highlight the file that you seek. Here the file is highlighted, and we select Insert:

How to Import AutoCAD Drawings Directly into Word Documents Jeffrey Donnell The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering

We are returned to the Insert Object dialog box, and we see that our files path is shown in the file name window. We accept this file by selecting OK:

How to Import AutoCAD Drawings Directly into Word Documents Jeffrey Donnell The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering

10

The drawing is displayed in the Word file:

Here the image appears to be poorly sized. Its best not to greatly re-size AutoCAD drawings using Words tools, but it is possible to crop images without creating problems. We will demonstrate this next.

How to Import AutoCAD Drawings Directly into Word Documents Jeffrey Donnell The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering

11

3: Adjusting Display size To crop this image, open Words Format menu and select Object:

How to Import AutoCAD Drawings Directly into Word Documents Jeffrey Donnell The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering

12

The Format Object dialog displays, the picture tab is selected and the object is cropped from the left and the top:

How to Import AutoCAD Drawings Directly into Word Documents Jeffrey Donnell The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering

13

4: Inserting a caption

To insert a caption, open the Insert menu, highlight References and then select Caption in the submenus.

How to Import AutoCAD Drawings Directly into Word Documents Jeffrey Donnell The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering

14

The Caption dialog box will display:

In the Caption dialog, you are allowed to type your descriptive caption, to characterize the graphic for Word, and to select the position of the caption. For large documents, you can ask Word to manage the numbering of your figures and tables. Should your instructor dislike boldface captions, you can adjust the captions appearance as you would adjust any chunk of text. This drawing is treated as a Figure, and its caption is placed below the display:

How to Import AutoCAD Drawings Directly into Word Documents Jeffrey Donnell The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering

15

With the caption information filled out and verified, select OK, and you will be returned to your document page. It should look something like this: