Requirements
The DDE protocol has been supported by Excel since some of the very first versions of Microsoft Excel, and is still being supported in the most recent Versions of Microsoft Excel 2021, Microsoft 365 and probably also in future versions.
This means that there are no additional requirements for Excel to use the DDE real time data connection.
Adding an Data link to an Cell
In order for the data to be available, the Runtime of the VisXpert DDE Server must be running. If it is not running, Excel will not find any data an return “Error” to the cells value.
To display DDE data in Excel, enter the following formula into each cell:
=<Application>|Topic!Item
In VisXpert the Application Name is always “VisXpertDDE”, the Topic depends on the configured topics and the Item depends on the Items configured in this Topic.
Vars Topic
The “Vars” topic is an special topic and you can access all Variables of VisXpert by defining the “GroupName:ValueName” syntax.
You can use the following Syntax in Excel, without configuration
=VisXpertDDE|Vars!’PLC01:AIn0001.Val’
The Group and Value are separated by an double period “:”, but that is an special character for Excel.
To avoid this, the Item must be put into “Single Quotes” (because Double quotes are also special for Excel)
Something like this: =VisXpertDDE|Vars!’PLC01:AIn0001.Val’
Cell Value Updates
The Cell values will be updated, whenever an value update of the referenced value happens. Excel then displays the new value as soon as it arrives via the DDE data link.
