Spreadsheet program for engineering units? 5

[chrisjj]

Can anyone recommend a Windows spreadsheet program that understands engineering units?

E.g. will convert values automatically between units I have specified, and automatically display the units of the results of expressions of values in units e.g. energy (J) / mass (g) / temperature (J) -> specific heat (J/g/K).

Thanks.

 

[zdas04]

Yeah, it is called MathCAD.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.

 

[swertel]

It's not a spreadsheet, but this utility is the defacto standard.

http://joshmadison.com/convert-for-windows/

--Scott
www.wertel.pro

 

[Latexman]

I've heard good things about:

Uconeer

Good luck,
Latexman

 

[chrisjj]

Thanks all, but I do want a spreadsheet program.

 

[DRWeig]

Sounds like an opportunity to write your own and sell it!

Good on ya,

Goober Dave

Haven't see the forum policies? Do so now: Forum Policies

 

[IRstuff]

I use Mathcad and have used Uconeer in the past. BTW, Uconeer was written by a member on this site. Since Mathcad is a bit pricy, an alternative is SMarh Studio, which is similar in concept to Mathcad, but is freeware:

http://en.smath.info/forum/yaf_postst1381_SMath-Studio-0-95--17-June-2012.aspx

Alternately, TK Solver can handle units and has an Excel add-on that might do what you want.

Speaking of which, if you give more context and more information, it's more likely that someone will be able to come up with a solution. Withholding usage scenarios only makes it harder to find a solution.

TTFN
faq731-376

 

[MintJulep]

Excel has the CONVERT() function.

 

[electricpete]

I second IRStuff's mention of smath - a great free tool imo. (I do realize it is not what you requested).

=====================================
(2B)+(2B)' ?

 

[IDS]

Excel has the CONVERT() function.

... which looks like it was written by the work-experience kid over a coffee break.

I've had a convert UDF on my to-do list for quite some time, and it's still there. I may lift it up the list a bit (but please don't anyone hold there breath waiting).

Doug Jenkins
Interactive Design Services

http://newtonexcelbach.wordpress.com/

 

[MintJulep]

Excel has the CONVERT() function.

... which looks like it was written by the work-experience kid over a coffee break.

So buy the kid a bagel and tell him to get back to work on it.

 

[IDS]

To be fair to the work-experience kid, looking up the documentation for the CONVERT() function it does look like it's less useless than I thought it was. For one thing it looks like it recognises metric prefixes, which I had an idea it didn't.

More details here:

http://spreadsheets.about.com/od/ex...-03-18-Convert-Measurements-In-Excel-2010.htm

Doug Jenkins
Interactive Design Services

http://newtonexcelbach.wordpress.com/

 

[IDS]

In Excel 2010 you now get a drop-down list of available unit abbreviations when you use the CONVERT() function. Users of earlier versions may find the link below useful, which provides an add-in that does the same thing.

http://blog.contextures.com/archives/2011/07/13/excel-convert-function-made-easy/

Doug Jenkins
Interactive Design Services

http://newtonexcelbach.wordpress.com/

 

[dik]

sMathStudio is a free Mathcad (almost) workalike... it's great for the price and does units fairly well.

Dik

 

[surfer200]

Here is a useful Excel Book

 

[surfer200]

One more:

 

[surfer200]

Sorry, here is it

 

[IDS]

Here's yet another one:

http://www.csun.edu/science/ref/spreadsheets/xls/conversions.xls

I like this one because you can see how he has derived the results and also it has some notes on some of the peculiarities of unit conversion.

Doug Jenkins
Interactive Design Services

http://newtonexcelbach.wordpress.com/

 

[kstifle]

I've used ChangeUnits Add-in for a few years. Seems to work OK.

K. Stifle, P.E.

 

[IDS]

I have just posted my own unit conversion spreadsheet on my blog:

Looking for a spreadsheet or add-in that would provide better functionality my requirements are:
■Provision of User Defined Functions (UDF’s) for unit conversion, so that the conversion may be easily applied to tabular data anywhere in any spreadsheet.
■A wide range of output units, including all “customary units” used for engineering applications in the USA.
■Editable unit data tables so that new units may be added or corrected.
■Output of converted data in array form, so that the data may be easily used in other UDF’s.
■Preferably free and open source.

None of the existing unit conversion spreadsheets that I’m aware of meet all these requirements (most don’t even come close), so I decided to write my own.

The download file provides open source UDF's to convert to and from SI and a list of 344 non-SI units (taken from Wikipedia).
It's version 0.0, so no doubt there are some errors, and things that could be improved.

Any comments gratefully received.

Download from:

http://newtonexcelbach.wordpress.com/2012/07/11/units-for-excel/

Doug Jenkins
Interactive Design Services

http://newtonexcelbach.wordpress.com/