I have a large spreadsheet of data. In this instance the data consists of section properties for AISC steel shapes. I am wondering what is the 'best' way to incorporate this large 'database' into Smath calculations. For example, I would ideally like to select a shape (I suppose I could type the name) i.e. W21x57 and then have a bunch of section variable populate with the data.

In my very limited experience with SMath, here is some sort of an attempt at a solution ->
I would type the section name in smath (W12x49), this name is then exported to a certain cell in excel (say A1). From there a vlookup is performed in excel and a bunch of cells then fill with the requested values (columns A2-AXX now have area, flange width, etc.). Then the section variables which were predefined to look in the cells import the value of these cells (A=importcell(A2), bf=importcell(A3), etc.).

My other thought is may all of this information can be imported into Smath, but then I'm not sure how to do a VLookup in Smath.

Any direction is appreciated or maybe this cannot be done.
Thanks for any help.

Also why do I not receive email notifications even when the 'Watch this topic" is checked?

You can import the table data and use the function findrows().

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Thank you martin. You have been very helpful.

Do you think this excel file is too big? I was not able to reach the end of the calculation time.
See attached

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Steel Properties.zip (1.18 MiB) downloaded 323 time(s).

Just change the optimization (right mouse button menu) to numeric. Then reading in the sheet takes 4 seconds on my computer.
See here for details.

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