Spreadsheet Workbench

Introduction
The Spreadsheet Workbench allows you to create and edit spreadsheets, use data from the spreadsheet as parameters in a model, fill the spreadsheet with data retrieved from a model, perform calculations, and export the data to other spreadsheet applications such as LibreOffice or Microsoft Excel.

The Spreadsheet Workbench has been available since FreeCAD 0.15.



Cell Expressions
A spreadsheet cell may contain arbitrary text or an expression. Technically, expressions must start with an equals '=' sign. However, the spreadsheet attempts to be intelligent; if you enter what looks like an expression without the leading '=', one will be added automatically.

Cell expressions may contain numbers, functions, and references to other cells. Cells are referenced by their row (CAPITAL letter) and column (number). Example: B4 + A6

Numbers may use either a comma ',' or a decimal point '.' separating whole digits from decimals.

The constants pi and e are predefined, and must be written in lowercase.

Mathematical Functions
The mathematical functions listed below are available.

Multiple arguments to a function may be separated by either a semicolon (';') or a comma followed by a space (", "). In the latter case, the comma is converted to a semicolon after entry.

Trigonometric functions use degrees as their default unit; for radian measure, add rad following the first value in an expression. Example: cos(45) is the same as cos(pi rad / 4).

Statistical / Aggregating Functions
The aggregating functions listed below are supported. Aggregating functions take one or more arguments, separated by a semicolon ';' or a comma and a space ", ". Arguments may include references to cells; cell references consist of the row letter (CAPITAL) followed by the column number. Arguments may include ranges of cells (two cell references separated by a colon). Example: average(B1:B8)

Conditional Expressions
Conditional expressions are of the form ''condition ? resultTrue : resultFalse''

The condition is defined as an expression that evaluates to either 0 (false) or non-zero (true). The following comparison operators are defined: ==, !=, >, <, >=, and <=.

The conditional statement has a bug regarding nested conditional statements. Only the true-result may contain another conditional statement. This is because parentheses are removed after an expression is entered. Trying to put a nested conditional statement in the false-result may result in incorrect parentheses causing a different result after saving and reopening the document. Note: This may no longer be true; at least some false result conditionals work properly.

Interaction between Spreadsheets and the CAD Model
Data in the cells of a spreadsheet may be used in CAD model parameter expressions. Thus, a spreadsheet may be used as the source for parameter values used throughout a model, effectively gathering the values in one place. When values are changed in the spreadsheet, they are propagated throughout the model.

Similarly, properties from CAD model objects may be used in expressions in spreadsheet cells. This allows use of object properties like volume or area in the spreadsheet. If the name of an object in the CAD model is changed, the change will automatically be propagated to any references in spreadsheet expressions using the name which was changed.

Because of an issue with internally generated names changing in the model at times, best practice indicates one should use user-assigned names in a spreadsheet when referring to model features or parameters. For example, if constraints of a sketch will be referred to in a spreadsheet cell, that constraint should have a user-assigned name. (Note: Best practice makes this a bad example. For a length constraint, best practice would have the length specified in the spreadsheet, and the constraint in the sketch would reference it.)

More than one spreadsheet may be used in a document; spreadsheets may be given a user-assigned name like any other object.

Reference To CAD-Data
As indicated above, one can reference data from the CAD model in spreadsheet expressions.

Computed expressions in spreadsheet cells start with an equals ('=') sign. However, the spreadsheet entry mechanism attempts to be smart. An expression may be entered without the leading '='; if the string entered is a valid expression, an '=' is automatically added when the final is typed. If the string entered is not a valid expression (often the result of entering something with the wrong case, e.g. "MyCube.length" instead of "MyCube.Length"), no leading '=' is added and it is treated as simply a text string.

The following table shows some examples assuming the model has a feature named "MyCube":

Cell Properties
The properties of a spreadsheet cell can be edited with a right-click on a cell. The following dialog pops up:



It has several tabs. The following properties can be changed:

While one may use the row and column number in an expression to reference a cell, best practice is to give the cell an alias-name and use that. For example, if the data in cell B1 contained the length parameter for an object, an alias name of "MyObject_Length" would allow the value to be referred to as "Spreadsheet.MyObject_Length" instead of "Spreadsheet.B1".
 * Text color and background color
 * Text horizontal and vertical alignment
 * Text style: bold, italic, underline
 * Display unit for this cell. Please read the Units section below.
 * Define an alias-name for this cell. This alias-name can be used in cell formulas and also in FreeCAD Expressions.

Spreadsheet Data in Expressions
The usage of spreadsheet data in other parts of FreeCAD requires a fully defined name. Because it is possible to have more than one spreadsheet in a document, the spreadsheet name together with the cell name or alias is required. The following pictures showing the usage of an alias "number" from a spreadsheet "MySheet" in an expression in the PartDesign Workbench.

Typing an "M" shows a list of available names. The arrow-buttons allow to select "MySheet".



Typing an "n" shows now the list of available alias names in MySheet starting with "n". The "number" can be selected with the down-arrow-button. Once a valid name with a usable content is given, the result field will present the calculated length.



Units
The Spreadsheet uses units. If a number has a unit, this unit will be used in all calculations. The multiplication of two length with the unit mm gives an area with the unit mm&sup2;.

You can switch the length-unit from mm to inch in the dialog, you get with a right-click on a cell. The cell will now show the length in inches. The value used for calculations does not change. The results of a formula using this value do not change, when the shown unit of an input was changed. The result is still calculated from the length in mm.

A number without a unit cannot be changed in a number with unit by the cell properties dialog. One can put in a unit string, that will also be shown, but the cell still contains only a number without unit.

Sometime it is desirably to get rid of a unit. This can only to be done by multiplying with 1 with a reciprocal unit.

Importing and exporting
Sheets can be imported and exported to the csv format which can also be read and written by most other spreadsheet applications such as Microsoft Excel or LibreOffice Calc. When importing files into FreeCAD, the delimiter (the character that is used to separate columns) must be the TAB character (this can be set when exporting from other applications). The import of a CSV-file is available over the menu Spreadsheet/ Import Spreadsheet or by clicking on the icon. This import function does not open Excel files or any other spreadsheet format.

Spreadsheets in Excel-format "xlsx" can be imported via the menu File/Import... into a FreeCAD document. Excel-spreadsheets can also be opened by FreeCAD by clicking in the menu File/Open... or by clicking on the icon. In this case a new document with a spreadsheet inside is created. Supported are the following features:


 * all functions that are also available in the FreeCAD spreadsheet. Other functions do give an error in the corresponding cell after the import.
 * Alias names for cells
 * More than one table in the Excel-sheet. In this case more FreeCAD spreadsheets are created.

Other functionality is not imported into the FreeCAD spreadsheet. The Excel-import is of FreeCAD.

Current Limitations
It is not possible providing data for a geometry, for example a length, in a spreadsheet and retrieving in the same spreadsheet the volume of the resulting shape. This will create a circular reference. This is a design decision. However, it is possible to use two different spreadsheets: one as data-source for geometry and another for reporting geometry-data.

It is not possible to select and copy multiple cells. Only the content of a cell from the input field can be copied and paste into the input field of another cell.

For FreeCAD earlier versions see Spreadsheet legacy