CAD Forum

So, I have a top level assembly that I am trying to save the BOM out as an Excel Spreadsheet. Admittedly, I do not do this often but I am trying to expand my capabilities.
It seems to not work tho. When I right click on the table at the top left corner I get the context menu pop up and I select "Save As.."
I scroll into the filetype drop down past the BOM template option and choose the Excel 2007 (.xlsx) filetype and type in a name and hit save.
The software pauses for a few moments, as one would expect while it works away at it.
But there is no file saved and no warning or dialog given. It just goes back to being ready for the next command.
Am I doing something wrong..? Or is something broken in my 2021 Version..?

Did the same steps as you did, but in SW2019. It saves a BOM in Excel format in the default location. Did you check this location?

Save as a spreadsheet has always worked for me. Are you sure you have write permissions to the location where you are trying to save the file?

Frank_Oostendorp wrote: ↑Mon Nov 08, 2021 5:46 am Did the same steps as you did, but in SW2019. It saves a BOM in Excel format in the default location. Did you check this location?

Frank.

Cheers for your response mate.
Where is this default location you mention..?

I have been using the conventional "save as" dialog to navigate to the project folder to save the file there.
I feel that should work..?! Just like all the other files I have saved there..

SPerman wrote: ↑Mon Nov 08, 2021 7:24 am Save as a spreadsheet has always worked for me. Are you sure you have write permissions to the location where you are trying to save the file?

Scott.

See my reply to Frank.

I have saved all files pertaining to this project so far in the "Project Folder".. As one would do in ones normal workflow.

I just wondered if there was something broken in this version (2021 SP4.1)

I'm still on 2020Sp5, so I can't help there.

UPDATE:

So it turns out that I can indeed create Excel files from the BOM as one would expect.
It simply would not allow me to save it to my chosen directory.. Which is weird because I have full administrative permissions and all other solidworks files save ok to this folder.
That said, I tried saving it as a .CSV file and that worked fine and when I opened this file, everything worked as expected.
But when attempting to save it as .xlsx within Excel, this is when I finally got a warning that I could not save to my preferred folder. (SW said nothing and gave no indication that it couldn't or wouldn't, it simply didn't do anything at all..)
Instead I saved it to my drive's root directory and this worked fine. (I checked all the usual things, characters, filepath length, etc. no issues there but...)
Experiment time: Back to solidworks, repeat all steps to create Excel BOM, save to same root directory, SUCCESS..!!

SPerman wrote: ↑Mon Nov 08, 2021 7:24 am Are you sure you have write permissions to the location where you are trying to save the file?

Odd.. It seems this is likely the issue, even if I cannot fathom how/why..
But mission accomplished. And although I still do not have any clue why solidworks and Excel will not save xlsx files to my preferred folder, I have an acceptable workaround.

Thank you to you who offered assistance. I appreciate it.

@Damo What folder location was giving you the problem?

So saving to "c:\" worked fine?

jcapriotti wrote: ↑Tue Nov 09, 2021 6:05 am @Damo What folder location was giving you the problem?

The folder I was trying to save to was the same "project folder" all the other files related to this assembly are saved in.
It is on a separate SSD from my OS (as are ALL my SW files) installed locally on my machine. No network config for me.
This folder is only 4 folders deep from the root directory. The Filepath is barely 50 Characters.
(I did a small experiment and it can work with a truly long filepath many several folder deep..)

jcapriotti wrote: ↑Tue Nov 09, 2021 6:05 am So saving to "c:\" worked fine?

I actually suspect it may be the "#" I have in the project folder filename. A couple of tests on this has confirmed this..
Although one can have this character in a filename or filepath, SW and Excel will not create or save an xlsx file there..
Even after the file is moved to this folder, it will open but not save..

In short, saving to literally anywhere else worked fine..

As you have learned, special characters in files and paths is a bad idea. It is hard to predict which software will be OK with it, and which wont.

Damo wrote: ↑Mon Nov 08, 2021 10:35 pm
Odd.. It seems this is likely the issue, even if I cannot fathom how/why..
But mission accomplished. And although I still do not have any clue why solidworks and Excel will not save xlsx files to my preferred folder, I have an acceptable workaround.

Thank you to you who offered assistance. I appreciate it.

Try a save as to xls instead and to this same problematic destination.
If this works with an old Excel file format then this would indicate that the new xlsx format has something to do with this.