AutoCAD® 2008 and AutoCAD LT® 2008 Bible

Chapter 20. Working with External Databases

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Understanding database connectivity

• Preparing for database connectivity

• Connecting to a database

• Linking data to drawing objects

• Creating labels

• Querying the database

• Working with query files

The AutoCAD database connectivity feature enables you to communicate with an external database from within AutoCAD.

Note

AutoCAD LT does not include the database connectivity feature. This entire chapter applies to AutoCAD only.

Database connectivity is a powerful way to link drawing objects with data and is more flexible than using block attributes. With database connectivity, you can link data in an external database to any object in a drawing. In this chapter, I show you that database connectivity does not have to be as difficult as it often sounds.

Many AutoCAD users maintain databases separately from their drawings. Now you can work directly with your data by linking the rows of the database tables to objects in your drawings. The drawing objects thus become intelligent and carry these links with them in the drawing. You can also change data, such as a price or a part number, from within AutoCAD and have that change automatically applied and available in all drawing objects that are linked to that database item. Finally, you can create labels in your drawing, based on the data in the database.

Note

You can link to external Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and comma delimited (CSV) files in a table. For more information, see Chapter 13. Using that ...