eDrawings-Would you send them to a customer?

For drawings, I send .pdf by default. I often send .dwg to customers who ask for it or who I know need the editable 3d data. For me, eDrawings are resrved for those customers who want to look at a model, but there isn't time or ability to use something else.

So, no, I would not send an eDrawing drawing to a customer. I agree, it's just not good enough.

I routinely send eDrawings to customers so they can review the models. Typically, I create eDrawings of parts and assemblies, not drawings. When I have a drawing to send to a customer, I normally begin by sending a pdf version. Occasionally, I will also send an eDrawing created from a drawing file.

Overall, my customers really like the eDrawings and find them to be very useful in reviewing designs. They understand that any text/notes might not be cleanly formatted, but they don't care because the 3-D models are their focus. Of course, despite any formatting problems, any text or notes are useful in identifying and explaining things.

I should note that I recently generated a 12 page eDrawing from a drawing file so it could be used to give a presentation dominated by 3-D models. My customer was very happy with the result.

And you don't have any problems with text sizing or other issues?

There are occasional discrepancies with text size and position, but not enough to be a serious problem. I review the eDrawings before sending them on to customers and most of the time I don't notice any problem. When I do see text that appears incorrectly, I will occasionally adjust the original drawing file to compensate and re-create the eDrawing.

I have never had a customer comment on text size, so I doubt they are even aware of any slight discrepancies that exist.

We are having a problem with eDrawings not printing OLE objects to Xerox large format plotters. Drawings print fine in draft mode or to other printers. I'm concerned what our customer will see when they plot.

Tony

I haven't encountered this problem, so I can't offer any insights. I know my customers periodically print from the eDrawings and no one has complained about printing problems. To be honest, I suspect the primary use of eDrawings is on screen review, so printing may be a secondary priority.

The problems I have are more than minor discrepancies. When a note is well within the border of a drawing in SWX and then runs an inch outside the drawing in eDrawings it is not acceptable nor to any standards I know of. This kind of thing occurs so often that it is more than a minor inconvenience.

Out of curiousity, what font do you use on your drawings?

I typically use Century Gothic throughout a drawing. Do you ever use more than one font on a given drawing?

I did some tests today to try to narrow the OLE print issue from eDrawings. I made a simple round extrude, created a drawing and inserted one line of text from MS Word. Took forever to print (about 7 minutes) in quality mode! Print file size is HUGE. Removed the one line of text and it printed in seconds. Tried the same test with an MS Excel spreadshet and had the same result. I've been communicating with both SW and Xerox to isolate the problem. Nothing thus far.

Regards,

Tony

We use Arial Narrow. This may be the problem. Century Gothic is the default SW font and may be the only one tested. The font we use is pretty much a company standard which means if I try to change it I better get used to wearing tar and feathers.

And to answer your question, No, we just use the one font.

If eDrawings works well with Century Gothic (the default), but not other fonts that is a serious limitation. Generally speaking, I have no reason to change the font from the default so my situation may be a special case.

If I get a chance, I will perform some quick tests tomorrow.

Here is a quote from a vendor to whom I just sent an eDrawing exe file. Another 15 minutes wasted screwing around with non-standard file formats. They got a pdf in the end.

I got you e-mail and tried doing as you'd instructed in your voice mail message but didn't have any luck. I'm getting a message that I need to download some solidworks software that I am unsure whether [vendor's name] Bearings wants me to download.

If you have any way of converting it to an Autocad 2000 or pdf file I should be able to open it.

Hey TOP.........

If you send them the zipped version of the e drawing, then there is nothing that needs to be downloaded. It sends the viewer with it.

That's what I thought. No more.