AutoCAD Electrical 2016 - Editing Multiple Components

By Gus Petrikas

If you ever find yourself in a position were you have to change a property of a component after you finish your drawing, here are a couple of ways to do just that.  The obvious one would be to edit the components one-by-one using the Edit Component command, but that could be really time consuming, if you are working on a bigger project. The second, much faster solution to the problem would be to edit all the components at once, using Excel: 

•  Inspect the components that need to modified. For the purpose of this demonstration I am going to change the Rating of these circuit breakers.  

• Navigate to the Import/Export Data tab on the ribbon and select To Spreadsheet. 

• Choose the data category that needs exporting. In this case - Components.

• Choose the preferred format. I would recommend .xls as it is very easy to edit the exported file. 

• Then, pick the files that will be included in the spreadsheet and hit OK.

• You should now have an exported spreadsheet with all the Component information. Open the spreadsheet and make the necessary modifications.  

• Save and exit. 
• Navigate back to the Import/Export Data tab and click From Spreadsheet. 

• Choose if the changes need to be made to the Project or the Active Drawing and hit OK. 

• The drawing should automatically display the new, updated component values.