I am doing a planting plan/drawing in LO refering to objects I have in the SU file. I am not sure which is most clever - name the component/group correct in SU and simply use option to pick that text up in LO or to write whatever it should be in LO and not bother to have correct label in SU?
To this I have some questions to the texts:
After putting in the correct text/label for the component, via outliner in SU I do the text reference in LO and it works fine with correct reference- but if I change or update a text reference in SU it does not seem to change in LO when updating the model reference? If I suddenly change from a rhododendron to a azalea?
The text box is too wide - it comes outside the drawing (red circle) - so I try to narrow it down - but then the whole box moves (to the left on the red line - I want the text box in line under each other) - how can I make it not as wide - but rather two rows instead?
It seems like the possibility is there, to refer to objects on tags not visible in the scene in SU, in LO? First attempt to put in the text label with the rhododendon - I got a reference to my 3D object which is not visible- I could not see it in LO as it is on a tag not visible in the scene I use- but still my text box “catched it” from the SU model?
If you remove the rhododendron component in SketchUp and put an azalea in it’s place, the component the label was attached to will be gone so the label is unattached. You should be able to edit the leader of the label and attach it to the new component after updating the LO file to show the change. You just need to double click into the label, grab the end of the leader, and move it to attach to the edge of the azalea.
Here I double click on the leader to get into edit mode and move the end of the leader to a different component. Then, because there are several different auto text options available to use for the component I double click on the text and choose the Component Definition again.
Double clicked on the leader to get into the label an drag the edge of the text box.
It should not be possible to have a label anchor to an object whose tag is turned off. Is it possible it was anchoring to something else? It would be interesting to see the LO file with that.
Dave - may I ask if you have any tip to solve the red leader text? For most of them it worked to right click and “reconnect to model” to fix it - but this one is stubborn and stays red… would be interesting to understand why?
I suspect that there isn’t a thing in the viewport for that leader to anchor too. Try editing the label and move the end of the leader to anchor on an edge of the component.
Hi Dave - me… again…pls let me know when you get tired of all my questions…
How can I make sure to tag the leader text to “correct” group? In this case I have a group of pots with trees. the group is with 3 pots/trees. so in the group you find 3 groups - each of these is two groups one pot and one tree - do you follow me? What if I want to point to the group with all 3 pots and trees? What if I want to point to one of the three potted trees? Not only the pot… How can I find correct group?
When you start the label click on the drop down arrow and choose which text you want. On the left there’ll be a list of the objects and the entity (endpoint, edge or face) you click on. Here I’ve created a component containing three circle components as pots. Each component has something in its description field as well as in the Price and Size fields in the Advanced Attributes.
If you want to connect the label to a tree in the pot, stick the leader on the tree and you will see it included in the choose Entity list.
OK - one more question…
I work with plant details in excel - I love excel and it is easy to sort on different criterias etc and re-use plants on different projects I sum up areas etc- I can show/hide columns depending on purpose.
But I have not figured out how to work with it in LO?
To the left - I have just pasted my clip from excel straight in to LO copy/paste - as you can see format totally screwed.
To the right - in order to keep format - I first paste it as a bitmap in Word - where I make the photo collage (very easy to manage a table where I just replace c/p different plants) of the plants and then copy both plant photo collage and excel bitmap from word to LO - as you can see not a very good resolution on the text - but format as I want it.
Any creative tip on how to handle this and keep both format (where I have hidden columns and rows in the display I want to paste into LO) and being able to read the text? Please…
Currently LayOut won’t display images that are included in .xlsx files.
If I were doing something like this I would insert the images of the plants directly into LayOut with the spreadsheet inserted separately. Then arrange the images and spreadsheet as needed. Then each image is a separate reference in the LO file and you can quickly replace one with another by selecting it in Document Setup>References and clicking Relink.
As for the column widths in the spreadsheet, you should be able to set that up in Excel but you can drag the columns in LO to fine tune their widths.
HHhhmmm maybe I was unclear.
Images of plants not in excel - but word so .doc file. reason - because the table in word is easier to adjust change and update with exact same size of the images in the table even if the images size does not have same size. I have not found a way to do this as smooth and easy in LO -takes much longer time (for me)
When it comes to plant info - this is handled in excel - but how do you mean I can fine tune their widths in LO? Why does it not come out same size as it is in the actual excel file when I paste it?
Sorry. Either way, I would add the images directly into LO. You can resize the images in LO to make them fit where you want them.
The bitmap images of the text aren’t all that high quality so I think it would be better to insert the text as text either from a .xlsx file or from a .rtf file exported from Word. If you find it easier to do the formatting in word, that will work fine. Just save it with the .rtf extension and insert it into LayOut. You can right click on the inserted text and open it in Word to edit it if you need to make changes.
Regarding the spreadsheets, you can choose the range of cells when you insert it and you should be able to resize the columns if needed. I guess I’d want to see your .xlsx file to see if I can find a formatting reason why the columns aren’t the right width. I’m not seeing that with my own projects.
I would want to add images directly in LO - but I have not found such a smooth and effective working process as I have in Word for this.
In Word I have one table. I easily change the plant with c/p or simply right click on the image and replace with - doing this the exact size remains and I keep the table in same structured way. Then copy the table and just change images for next planting area. As far as I have understood - I can not organize images in a table with fixed sizes in LO and copy the table and easy change the images. In many cases I reuse same plant/image within same project of from a recent project which means image with plant info is already organized in a table and you copied into new table. Trying to import this word file as a rtf file- makes LO crash - I guess it is because of all images?
As for the excel list with all plant info - I use the information in different columns for different purposes. Now you get a list with plants only for this project but I have several hundred in my original file. I can sort plants from flowering months (cX) or if they need sun/shade (cI) or how hardy they are (cG) - I dedicate them to the project I am working with in cA and the area in the garden in cC- specific size of the planting are per plant is in corresponding table… well you get it… anyhow in the LO drawing I just need the connection with image and basic plant info so just some of the columns.
A full plant list with total areas and purchasing sizes of the plants is a different selection of tables. This I will submit also as a pdf but again I have not figured out a good way to do this i LO so I have it as a separat pdf.
It seems I am not able to upload xlsx or docx files here?!
You should be able to arrange the images in LO. It’s easy enough to resize them and distribute them on the page as you’d like. If you want to replace one image with another, you can select the existing image and, in Document Setup>References relink to the new image.
You should also be able to copy those images from one LO file to another. If you always have these things in your projects, you could set up your LayOut template to include the images and xlsx table. Then relink the references if needed to different images or a different version of the .xlsx file.
It could be that the images in the .rtf file are causing the problem.
As said, you don’t have to use the whole range of the Excel sheet. With copying the table, you’ll have some more control. So one inserted table gets the range of A1:A12, the copied table next could have B1:B12 etc.
You can even break it down to one field, only. The most important thing is that they are linked to the same sheet. Updating will affect all copies of that initial table:
Yes maybe that is what I need to consider to do a template in LO with image table… will it keep same size when replacing? Need to try this. However - the tables change in size and placement on the LO drawing as all gardens have different shapes and I move the plan around to fit it as good as possible…
This looks so nice Mike - but my excelsheet contains like 20+ columns and 400+ rows - I “jump” around in this file - meaning in some tables I show some info and in other views other info. Not columns or rows next to eachother - if you understand what I mean? I don´t understand how to navigate this?! Maybe I am a bit too complicated - I can see that but this is the only way I so far manage to have a “plant library” (excel file and a folder with like 500+ images) and pick material from this library to each project and try to present this together with my SU model in LO…
The image sizes should stay the same but it would be a good idea to make sure that all of your reference images have at least the same aspect ratio, i.e. they are all square so you don’t get distortion when substituting images.
