20 replies to this topic

[Ir Kavi]

hi everyone. i'm a new member. i have some doubts and i hope you guys can help me..can anyone tell me how to do piping and instrumentation drawing in Excel? i have done literature review on how to do P&ID and i found in excel we can do it. i will appreciate your help guys.

[Art Montemayor]

Ir:

I have been doing Process Flow Diagrams (PFDs) AND Piping and Instrumentation Diagrams (P&IDs) for years. I have always supplied as many of these as uploads to our Forums - where you can download them.

I was requested to contribute an Excel Workbook explaining how I create my PFDs and P&IDs and I prepared such a workbook and submitted it to our Forums. That was a couple of years ago, if I remember correctly. You can try looking through our Forums using the SEARCH feature. I have done this, but I run into a history-related limitation: I don't seem to be able to go back more than 8 pages. My original post was, I believe, before that time period.

I will look through my local files and see if I can find a copy of the original Excel Workbook and post it here again. However, bear in mind that I do not find myself at my permanent residence at this time and only have some of the permanent files I have at home. I am presently here in Spain on a job assignment and do not have the resources I normally have at home.

If any other member reading this thread has a copy of my original Excel Drawing Tutor Workbook, I am sure everyone would profit from it. As I recall, I went to lengths to give a step-by-step tutorial on how to draw engineering symbols and diagrams in Excel. With the instructions I give, you should easily be able to draw accurate, detailed, and professional-looking P&IDs.

I will keep looking and with some luck, I will find it and post it.

[gvdlans]

Are you looking for this file?

Attached Files

•  Engineering_Art__Rev1.XLS   441.5KB   4410 downloads

[Art Montemayor]

Thank you, Guido!

You are a life saver and, by the ability to come up with an April 2007 product, another pack rat like myself.

(I came up with a copy after some searching through my memory sticks here in Madrid, but you beat me to the punch).

Best Regards,

[Zauberberg]

Thank you, Guido!
You are a life saver

As a Safety Engineer, he just did what he's supposed to do - life saving.

[kkala]

I remember a discussion about chemical engineering symbols some 5 (?) years ago. I was not a member at that time. A member has prepared ISO symbols for Process Engineering and presented them in an attached file. I could not open the file, for a password was needed (now I understand why). Probably that file of symbols is also useful and I have not found it through searching. If anybody has this file, please resend it to this thread.

[luuquocdai]

Why you don't use Microsoft Office Visio?

[Art Montemayor]

luuquocdai:

I have addressed this question many times in the past and answered it the same number of times. I'll do it just one more time:

• I can draw much more detail and much more attractive symbols in Excel than in Visio;
• You have to pay extra to obtain Visio; Excel isn't free, but "everyone" has it included in MS Office;
• I can do more in Excel than in Visio; I can label anyway I want. I can calculate. I can share via email anytime I want. More importantly, just about anyone can open and see my work because they already have Excel loaded.
• I can draw to any size I want in Excel.
• I do not have to accept Visio's inferior and ugly symbols. I can create my own and store them in a library.

I can add more and more reasons, but I am tired of explaining such simple and common sense reasons.

[riven]

Why you don't use Microsoft Office Visio?

Visio is pretty handy for creating drawings if it is used by a lot of people. In my case everyone has access to the same list of shapes it is usually sufficient for concepts or process overviews. In my company (700); Visio comes as standard as do a lot of other tools. Only engineering generally needs more complexity.

TBH I have never found Visio symbols ugly but then again having to deal with imperial and metric systems as well as multiple European standards on drawings may make me immune to that.

It depends on the complexity of the drawing you are doing. I would not for example to do plan elevation and end view drawings in either visio or excel.

[Ir Kavi]

thanks Mr Montemayor and Mr gvdlans. i really appreciate your advice and help.its really meaningfull for me.

regards,
kavi

[kkala]

Visio is pretty handy for creating drawings if it is used by a lot of people. In my case everyone has access to the same list of shapes it is usually sufficient for concepts or process overviews. In my company (700); Visio comes as standard as do a lot of other tools. Only engineering generally needs more complexity...I would not for example do plan elevation and end view drawings in either visio or excel.

Having briefly tried visio, autocad, excel, turbocad, proceed, I have come to the conclusion that autocad is better (but expensive for private use!) for process matters. And that almost any piece of software as above could do this job, if enough familiarity is acquired with it.
On the other hand MS Office drawing format has the advantage that the receiver can edit it, seeing that almost everybody has MS Office and knows how to use it. If you send an autocad file to a process engineer, you do not know whether it can be edited. Not to mention file size (bigger in autocad).
OK, you can convert the file into *.pdf and the receiver can read it; but he/she cannot edit it. Same for autocad files by using free vewers.
For this reason any drawing software having the ability to convert its output into MS Office drawing format has an advantage compared to others. I do not mean copy/paste, but true loyal conversion into *.xls or *.doc file, so that limited further editing can be done using excel or world. Is there any drawing software package able to do that? Or a way to do that? I do not know; but if anybody does, please advise. I do not know whether this is possible.

Edited by kkala, 25 March 2010 - 10:59 AM.

[riven]

For this reason any drawing software having the ability to convert its output into MS Office drawing format has an advantage compared to others. I do not mean copy/paste, but true loyal conversion into *.xls or *.doc file, so that limited further editing can be done using excel or world. Is there any drawing software package able to do that? Or a way to do that? I do not know; but if anybody does, please advise. I do not know whether this is possible.

Not as far as I know. Obviously there is a drive in the different companies to limited interaction with other programs so that you must buy theirs in order to edit.

A possible advantage of this is that the end user cannot just modify the drawing without going back and getting the opinion of the original designer. That of course does not stop alterations being made (end user ignores drawing e.g. Flixborough) or even bad decisions being made (you could have a designer without familiarity to the unit) but in most cases it adds at least an extra layer of 'lets think this through'.

You could try http://media-convert.com/ though I have no idea if that works.

[Profe]

Hi Art and Ir Kavi.

By the way, attached thanks to you Art, I send the file ISA_Symbols.xls.
I don't remember when I downloaded, but for the purpouse, I think that file will be useful for this subject.

Good luck.

Attached Files

•  ISA_Symbols.xls   144KB   2220 downloads

Edited by Profe, 26 March 2010 - 05:04 PM.

[denizen360]

use microsoft visio to make p&id.. with microsoft office package it is available...but you should know the standard symbols to make a p&id ..
p&id

[S.AHMAD]

Dear all

I have done a lot of process calculations (process design, performance analysis e.t.c.) using EXCEL. Having drawing on EXCEL provides the synergy.

Thank you ART, GVDLANS and Profe.

Really appreciate your contribution.

Edited by S.AHMAD, 21 September 2011 - 03:52 AM.

[djack77494]

With both Visio and Office owned by Microsoft, I would expect the user interfaces to move closer together. I use both for drawings and I personally believe that Visio is more powerful as a drawing tool mainly due to its library of drawing objects. It's also a bit easier and more precise in getting objects to an exact position. But I like using Excel drawing tools within a spreadsheet because I can use "live numbers" within the spreadsheet as labels or identifiers within my drawing. When sending your work offsite, keep in mind that techncal people can be assumed to have Excel, but may not have Visio.

Edited by djack77494, 22 September 2011 - 05:08 PM.

[AVINASH UTTAM WAGH.]

you should know the basic symbol of P&ID and accordingly you prepare with the pencil on excel sheet.

[Shivshankar]

Hi,

http://www.scd-diagr...aq=yes&id_cat=1

Hope you find interesting to draw P&IDs in MS VISIO.

Regards
Shivshankar

[doolittle]

Hi,

 

Thank you very much for the information.

In my company we are short in VISIO licences so this is a very good option.

 

 

Regards,

José

[jmarshallr]

Are there any other GREAT files like these for P&IDs?

I found this site by accident. It is assume...