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Summary Information, Custom Properties and Design Tables

I was after some assistance on the hierarchy/precedence/structure between Summary Information, Custom Properties and Design Tables. I am wanting to use these to hold information for insertion into drawing's text boxes; i.e. description, material, revision.....

I want to use the Summary Information 'Title' and 'Comments' fields for the following:

1) As the first and second line of a drawing's description title box 2) Use the design table as the means of easily loading all default/template custom properties (in total up to #20 separate fields). 3) Use the custom properties fields to assign values to named custom properties i.e. a custom property 'Descriptor1' would have the value $PRP:"SW-Title"

The reason for using the Summary Information 'Title' and 'Comments' field for the description is that I can search files easily for this to filter drawing/parts.

This is a poor man's PLM but should work well enough.

My problem is understanding where to post the field values so that SW or MS Explorer does not overwrite them. I then need to pick these values and post so they can be used in drawings and in the Summary Information dialog box.

Thanks in advance.

Reply to
PeterD
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1) I am not sure exactly what you are asking I asume you want the text from Title and Comments to fill your template title block. In the template put a note in the desired location and fill it like this

$PRP:"SW-Title" $PRP:"SW-Comments"

I don't see any issue with that.

2) I don't think this is necessary except maybe on old parts but you could write a macro and that would probably be easier. If you use dsofile.dll in your macro all your old parts can have data added to Summary information and document level custom properties extremely quickly. Thousands of parts can be updated in a matter of seconds when done propperly, I have run this through excel to change the material on files and it was extremely quick.

3) You can do that but what would the advantage be since you can already access that information in the same manner in both Boms and in notes for drawings.

I don't understand how Explorer or SW will overwrite these properties. These fields are not touched (as far as I know) by either program except in the case of addins which I am sure you would know if one of your addins was editing these fields

Corey

Reply to
CS

Corey, Thanks for the reply.

straight into a BOM on a drawing and that will update the Custom Properties?

Regards Peter

Reply to
PeterD

Peter,

I am sorry that is not the case. You set up the drawing with notes that contain links to the custom properties. You then modify the custom properties and they automatically fill in the notes. I would suggest creating a macro to help in maintaining the custom properties, since it is cumbersome to edit them through the Properties dialogue. There are many out there Propagator I have heard is great, though I have not used it, othewise I could develop a custom one for a fee.

Corey

Reply to
CS

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