Calculation Presentation/Formatting 1

[StrucCyclist]

Hello,

I have attached a pdf of some calculations from a precast manufacturer. Does anybody know what program they may have used to these? I don't care about the calculations, but the presentation format is nice and I'd like to look into using a similar type of software. I don't like some of the restrictions you run into when using Excel.

Thank you.

 

[STpipe]

It looks like Excel to me.

 

[BridgeSmith]

It looks like something that could be done in Excel to me, too. It would take quite a bit of formatting, which I would never bother with, but I don't see anything I couldn't do.

 

[StrucCyclist]

Interesting. Guess I need to work on my Excel formatting skills.

 

[IRstuff]

Looks like Excel; the only things other than pure formatting might be:

> insertion of image, either bitmap or something similar
> possibly conditional formatting to add the "OK" column
> possibly some concatenations for a few instances of "RE = blah"
> possibly some indexed lookup for the reinforcement

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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[fel3]

I agree that the calc sheets were probably produced in Excel, although specialty commercial software or even proprietary software could have been used. For example, I have seen this level of formatting and better from commercial retaining wall programs. Regardless, the formatting shown here isn't all that elaborate or--in the case of Excel--all that difficult to do. I will say, though, that the equations would have been easier to produce and much better formatted had the engineer used the Equation Editor instead of manually formatting lines of text.

In any event, if I was doing these calculations, I would use Mathcad or SMath Studio. Mathcad and SMath calculations are easier to understand and the math is easier to check because the live equations are visible and are not hidden like with Excel. It's these hidden equations in Excel that make me cautious about trusting spreadsheets produced by others.* Heck, that even applies to spreadsheets I produce myself. The only advantage I see here for Excel is that spreadsheets are virtually always more compact than Mathcad and SMath worksheets. For example, I have a spreadsheet for asphalt pavement design using the Caltrans (California DOT) method that includes a one-page pavement design calculation tab and a one-page traffic index calculation tab. The equivalent Mathcad calculations take about 5-1/2 pages, not including the far more elaborate annotations that I typically include in my Mathcad worksheets.

* Several times in my career I have received a spreadsheet from someone else (both co-workers and clients, all engineers) where the supposed results of a calculation were actually just numbers entered into a cell, while the actual calculations were done outside of the spreadsheet. Sadly, these doofuses used Excel only to create a nice table.

============
"Is it the only lesson of history that mankind is unteachable?"
--Winston S. Churchill

 

[StrucCyclist]

Thanks for the responses. I'm looking to clean up my own work and am always looking to see how others have handled their own calculation/report presentations.

 

[Clyde38]

If you are talking about the equation format, they could have been using ExcelCalcs (

https://www.excelcalcs.com/).

I believe there are others as well. I've used ExcelCalcs for many years. It displays EXCEL formulas as equations.

Clyde Hancock
Design & analysis of electric motors and generators

http://www.motorconsultants.com

 

[Cobra17]

The thing I don't like about excelcalcs is that it doesn't show you the formula with the values in it. I created my own excel macro's that converts the formula's to show the formula with the values.

No named ranges needed for the macro to find what cells have the values for 'L', 'W', or 'H'. And all values update as you change the inputs.

The top bunch of lines is before I run the macro, and the following lines are after I run it.

 

[Clyde38]

This is from ExcelCalcs . . . However, it does not automatically update as you make changes. You have to do it manually. For me, not such a big issue.

Clyde Hancock
Design & analysis of electric motors and generators

http://www.motorconsultants.com

 

[IDS]

For those who want to evaluate formulas entered as text in a spreadsheet, my Units4Excel spreadsheet will do that. It will also do unit-aware calculations, and display the formula with symbols replaced by values.

https://newtonexcelbach.com/2020/12/29/units4excel-update/

Doug Jenkins
Interactive Design Services

http://newtonexcelbach.wordpress.com/

 

[StrucCyclist]

I appreciate everyone's responses in this thread. Thanks.

 

[DanStro]

For those that want better looking equations that you can show either symbols, cells, or values I've been using fxrender for a few years. It isn't the most stable add-in but it works well.

 

[IFRs]

If you used named ranges you can try =FORMULATEXT(cell) to show your work. For instance this is the result for me in on worksheet where the cell B28 has this in it =2.6*Dia*SG*(Ht-CL/12)/(Sd*JE)+ CA and =FormulaText(B28) shows this =2.6*Dia*SG*(Ht-CL/12)/(Sd*JE)+ CA