Dimension colors

[EngJW]

Our Autocad group needs everything saved in dwg format (they refuse to use SW; I can't fight that battle). Also, they need different colors assigned to text, leader lines, and others to work with their plotter.

No big deal to me, but I have looked through the options and cannot find a way to change the color of these items. If so, I could set up a template. If there is no way, I can always go into Autocad and use the property manager to change the colors. The only trouble with this is that it seems to sometimes undo any dimension formatting. I would like to be able to do as much as possible in SW and then copy and paste the final result on the company format.

I looked at system colors but they do not seem to apply to drawing dimensions.

Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[Heckdogg]

you could create a SW dwg template that looks like the one from AutoCAD, and add the test, leader lines, etc to their own layer with the colors you need.

 

[rgrayclamps]

Sorry that I have no answer for you. But you can fight that battle. You can fight the battle by showing your productivity using SW. They are a group of people falling behind. They have not realized the revolution. You can show them amazing things you can do, like design automation.

Using color plotters for engineering drawings (blue prints?) is not economical. If you have hard time to do something, most likely you are not doing per ANSI or ISO standands.

Alex

 

[SolidsMaster]

I agree with Layers being the easiest, but there are a few other ways.

Use your filters to select every thing, and using the formatting toolbar you can change colors.

I'd stay away from trying to set pen numbers to colors (old school).

One last idea, but this is if you started up a new drawing and were just drawing in SW.

click outside your drawing border.
then select line weight, color, linetype, etc.
This will set the default for anything you do next

Good luck, I know about the AutoCad battle. Tell them they made a command prompt interface if they're nervous...

John

 

[EngJW]

Sorry, I didn't explain very clearly what I am trying to do. They don't plot in colors, but anything on the drawing in white uses the largest pen. They want dimension lines in red or green so that a smaller pen is selected. I tried plotting from SW but it crashes the plotter and I have not been able to devote enough time to debug it, so I just put the SW drawing on an Autocad format and plot it from there. Really not the best way to do things and I plan to get away from it later on.

I was there years ago at another company when the change was made from the drawing board to cad. The same kind of resistance was encountered and some people dug in and refused to learn until they were forced. I imagine a lot of you have seen the same thing.

 

[MElam]

Look up DXF/DWG Mapping in the help file.

This will set up ACAD layers and colors for the dwg file during the save as

 

[ctopher]

Show them SolidWorks 2005 w/ DWGEditor. You can have both worlds in one package.

Chris
Sr. Mechanical Designer, CAD
SolidWorks 05 SP0.1 / PDMWorks 05
ctopher's home site

 

[SBaugh]

Change the color of your dimensions using the "Line format" Toolbar. Then in that TB - use "Line Color". Simply highlight the dimension(s) and select "line color", pick the color and walla dimension is a different color.

If you Plotter is crashing then you need to look at a different driver.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
3DVision Technologies

http://www.3dvisiontech.com

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376
faq559-716 - SW Fora Users

 

[smcadman]

Save it as a .dwg, and let them fix it with a LISP routine on their end. There are a few routines freely availiable on the internet that do this.

Flores

 

[SBaugh]

You can then print out of SW and use Black and white only under the Page setup.

Why take it to AutoCAD or export it if you can do it from one application.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
3DVision Technologies

http://www.3dvisiontech.com

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376
faq559-716 - SW Fora Users

 

[EngJW]

Thanks for the help. Selecting the dimension and using the line toolbar did the trick.

Let me ask another question on this subject: an instructor once told us to hide any overlaping dimension lines (this being with Autocad) so that a plotter would not draw them more than once.

Is this still true with SW? It is really time consuming to find them all on a complex drawing.

 

[MElam]

Unless you are still using an old pen plotter, it shouldn't be an issue.