SW previews

[sbmathias]

We have some users who use the SolidWorks Viewer to look at and print existing drawings. They'd like to have Windows Explorer display a thumbnail of SW drawings when they click once on them, as most image files do. This would help them locate the file they want without having to open them.

Those who have the full version of SolidWorks do have this functionality, but I can't find any way to get this for our Viewer users. Any ideas out there?

 

[smcadman]

I have the same problem, but I have SW Office Pro installed. I installed the viewer because I thought it would be quicker to view drawings than opening SW to view them. It is quicker, but I lost my thumbnail views in Windows Explorer. "Show graphics in Windows Explorer" is checked in Options.

Flores
SW06 SP2.0

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Have you tried using the eDrawing program instead of the viewer?

MERRY CHRISTMAS
(Unabashedly Politically Incorrect)

 

[roland2005]

Here at my company we always save the drawing as a .TIF file and place it in a folder on the server so non-solidworks users can view and print drawings. If you do it, remember to click options and pick packbits compression and set the DPI to 600. This will give you the best results. Also, we tried to save as .JPG, but the drawings came out blurry. Hope this helps.

 

[sbmathias]

CBL:
Yes, we've tried eDrawings, but find little to recommend it over the admittedly lame Viewer. It seems like both of these are pretty limited unless the full version of SW is also installed.

Roland:
We could export them as a variety of image file types, but it seems like we shouldn't have to. Lots of extra work and files to manage. There is something (a Registry entry??) that Windows is using to generate the thumbnails for some file types and not others. Seems like if a registered application can read and display a file type, it should also be able to generate a thumbnail. I'd just like to find out the mechanism so I can enable it for these users.

 

[ctopher]

Open folder in Win Exp, View, thumbnail.

Chris
Systems Analyst
SolidWorks/PDMWorks 05
AutoCAD 05
ctopher's home site (updated 06-21-05)
FAQ559-1100
FAQ559-716

 

[rfus]

Microsoft's New OS, Vista, addresses your issues and more.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/experience.mspx

See if you can live with edrawing for one more year.I wouldn't knock on edrawings. I think its a great tool.

Just save the drawings as recomended as a tif or jpeg with the same name as the .slddrw file and put all these in a folder in the drawings directory. If someone need sto see a preview then they can open the folder, thumbnail or filmstrip through the pics, and then go back up in the directory and locate the name corresponding to the pic they just spotted.

 

[sbmathias]

ctopher:
That doesn't help if Windows (somehow) doesn't know how to create a thumbnail. It does display thumbnails for all the files it knows how to. For example, it won't display the thumbnail for a Word doc. Along that line, it seems like some people might want to be able to preview Word docs!

 

[sworks]

In Solidworks....click Tools, Options, System Options tab, in the General section, make sure there is a check next to "View thumbnail graphics preview in Windows Explorer." It puts the preview image of the SW doc in as the icon.

Happy Holidays!!

 

[sbmathias]

Original post was asking how to set this up for those who do not have the full version of SolidWorks, just the viewer.

 

[Beggar]

sbmathias, have you elevated this to the VAR level for elevation to SWX? It sounds like something that they need to weigh in on.

I'm very interested in the answer, though.

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