Hi all
this is probably something many of you know already but it may be helpful to some. I work in metric, many offset tables are in decimal feet eg Tom Yosts boats, or traditional feet and inches like 2ft 6inches). If you want to convert decimal feet to metric in Excel it is really pretty simple (well at least it is now that I have spent some time figuring it out).

1. In Excel draw up your offset table in decimal feet, one cell per measurement. This is a bit tedious.
2. in another cell put down the conversion factor (in this case I want to convert to millimetres so the conversion factor is 12 x 25.4 = 304.8)
3. Select and then 'copy' that cell
4. In 'Edit menu' select 'paste special', then check the 'Multiply box' and then click okay
5. Voila you are converted to millimetres

If you wanted to convert measurements like 3 feet 2 inches you simply need to convert this to a common unit like inches (38 in this example) and use the conversion factor 25.4 (there are 25.4 mm per inch)

Once you have converted you will find you have a lot of decimal points but seeing as we are talking millimetres we dont need that level of accuracy, so
1. Select all the cells you want to round off
2. Select the 'Format' dropdown menu
3. Select 'Number' then choose how many decimal places you want (I generally choose 0) and click okay
You are now nicely rounded off
There have been some other posts on how to get an offset table to a CAD program and print it if you want to go all the way.
cheers
David