GETTING STARTED WITH DIRECT TO EXCEL
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Overview
If you want to learn how to digitize in instruNet World, and then save a text file to be loaded by a spreadsheet program, post-acquisition, please refer to Saving Data to Excel from instruNet World. If you want to digitize directly into a spreadsheet, while data is being acquired in realtime, please consider the Direct To Excel program, described here. Note that Direct To Excel requires that an iW+ license be installed on your computer. To run Direct To Excel, please proceed with the following steps:

Installation

1. In order to run Direct To Excel, all of the following must be installed on your computer.
   
   
   • Windows Excel version ≥ 2010 (e.g. Microsoft Office ≥ 2010)
   • 32bit or 64bit Windows ≥ 7 Operating System
   • instruNet software ≥ 3.6, available at www.instrunet.com/d
   • iW+ license (see www.instrunet.com/plus for details)
2. If you are not sure these requirements have been satisfied, try running the Direct To Excel program, as described below, and if it runs ok, then you are probably ok.
3. Exit any currently running instruNet software and select under the Windows START menu: Programs / instruNet / Application Software / Direct To Excel / Direct To Excel.exe. This will run the Direct To Excel program, which is pictured below.
   
   
   
   In summary:
   
   
   • Press Channels to configure channels and to enable them for digitizing. To enable a channel for digitizing, click to make rectangle red, as shown above and described here. After setting up your channels, close the Network window by clicking it's upper-right close box.
   • Press Setup to set samples-per-second-per-channel and number-of-points-digitized-per-channel. Typically, one sets Number-of-Scans to 1.
   • Press Save to save the setup. Everything you did in the Channels and Setup areas is saved in a .prf file. Make sure you don't save to the Program Files folder, since that is a protected area.
   • Next time you run this software, you must press Load to load back your settings.
   • Press Start to start digitizing, and Stop to stop it.
   • For more details on how to use this software, press Help.
   • This program is written in Visual Basic, the source code is included at the below location, and you are welcome to modify it.
     
     ..Program Files(x86)\instruNet\Programming Interfaces\Visual Basic\VB Direct To...
4. Press the Channels button, select 2 channels for digitizing (i.e. click in small rectangle after channel address, it will turn red), and close the instruNet Network window.
5. Press the Start button and watch a new spreadsheet window appear and fill with instruNet data, as shown below. When finished, you can save or delete the Excel spreadsheet file.
6. Close the Direct To Excel program by clicking in the upper right corner.

Learning Direct to Excel

• Direct To Excel Tutorial
• Direct To Excel Summary

Troubleshooting

• Make sure that you are running DirectToExcel.exe version ≥ v3.6. To check the version number, right-click on DirectToExcel.exe, select Properties, and then select Version. This file is stored at "C: \ Program Files(x86) \ instruNet\ Programming Interfaces\ Visual Basic \ VB Direct To Excel\ bin\ DirectToExcel.exe". DirectToExcel.exe version ≥ v3.6 is supplied with instruNet Software version ≥ v3.6. To upgrade, click here.
• If you get a "Does not support a collection" alert, then your version of Excel might be too old, or you may have closed the Excel window while DirectToExcel was writing to it.
• If you digitize and all your points appear in Excel much faster than the sample rate, then you might be running in demo mode, which does not simulate sample rate accurately. Demo mode can be caused by having another version of instruNet running in the background. If you do not think this is the case, then reboot your computer to make sure. Also, demo mode can be turned on by other means, as described here here. To check if you are running in demo mode: run DirectToExcel, click the Channels button, click the TEST tab at the bottom of the window, click the SEARCH button, and then look for the word "Demo" in the "instruNet Driver" row (2nd row). Also, if you are running in demo mode, your controller will appear as "PCI Controller i200 " in the search report.
• If you cannot get DirectToExcel working, then consider digitizing with instruNet World software and then saving all channels to one text file, as described here.

History

• Direct To Excel.exe v3.6 (May 1, 2015)
  • compatible with Excel >= 2010 on 32bit or 64bit Windows >= 7 computer
  • compiled with 2015 v3.6 vb interface files
  • looks for device on any controller (not just 1st controller) before entering demo mode
• Direct To Excel.exe v2.1.1 (Oct 1, 2010)
  • compatible with Excel >= 2003 on 32bit Windows >= Xp computer
  • compiled with 2010 v3 vb interface files
  • looks for device on any controller (not just 1st controller) before entering demo mode