based on posts from several months ago I can see it is a well established fact that design tables do not work with office 2010 in any version of SW. i can confirm that this is the case on my new computer (running SW 2011 sp0).
anyone know if SW is fixing this issue? why does SW use excel for design tables, why not a universal format like csv?
if not i find it alarming that anyone with a computer purchased in the past year having the new version of office can't edit or create design tables. this is an annoyance for me, but I assume for others this would be flat out crippling.
Alex,
I've moved away from Excel based design tables. I now only use the built-in design table that SolidWorks created a few releases ago.
There are rare occasions that I need the equation features of the Excel based version, in which case I will use it.
A lot of people aren't aware of this powerful addition to SolidWorks because it's sort of 'hidden' and not well promoted.
Here is an example...
*) Open a part with configs (like a Toolbox part)
*) Right-click 'Material' in the FM and select 'Configure Material'
Now you have the beginnings of a SolidWorks based design table, but don't be fooled... there's much more!
*) Select the 'Hide/Show Custom Properties' button
Now you have custom properties in there
*) Double click a sketch
It adds a suppress column
*) Double click a dimension
Now you can configure dims, etc
*) Where it says <Enter Name>, type in 'Design Table'
*) Hit the Save button and the OK button
Now in your configurations pane, you have a new design table!
You can delete columns, drag them around, edit cells.. it's so much faster than waiting for a stupid Excel window to load up and dealing with third party app issues.