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You can use a standard or sketched drawing format in any number of drawings and then modify it or replace it at any time. This chapter describes how to create and manipulate drawing formats, as well as how to use format libraries. Topic Overview Standard Formats Creating Formats Using Sketcher Mode Using Formats in a Drawing Format Libraries
Overview
A format is a customized layout for a drawing sheet. It includes a title block, a border, tables, and your company logo. To create standard formats, you must be in Format mode and you must have a license for Pro/DETAIL. You can select the desired format size from a list of standard drawing sizes, or create a new size by specifying values for length and width. To create sketched formats, you must use Sketcher mode in basic Pro/ENGINEER. Because you can modify them parametrically, you can create nonstandard size formats or families of formats.
Standard Formats
Standard formats consist of note text, symbols, tables, and draft geometry, including draft cross sections and filled areas. You create or modify a standard format as you would a drawing, and you also use drawing setup files (see Using Formats in a Drawing. If you have a Pro/DETAIL license, you can do the following in Format mode:
Create draft geometry and notes. Move, mirror, copy, group, translate, and intersect geometry. Use and modify the draft grid. Specify user attributes. Create drawing tables. Use interface tools to create plot, DXF, DWG, SET, TIFF, CGM, and IGES files. Import IGES, DXF, and SET files into the format. Create user-defined line styles. Create, use, and modify symbols.
1. From the Pro/ENGINEER menu bar, choose File > New. 2. In the New dialog box, click Format and type a format name in the Name box, or accept
3. In the New Format dialog box, specify the format size by selecting Set Size and doing
one of the following: o Click Portrait in the Orientation box (to make the height larger than the width) and select a standard size from the Standard Size list. o Click Landscape in the Orientation box (to make the width larger than the height) and select a standard size from the Standard Size list. o Click Variable in the Orientation box to define both the height and width dimensions. Select Inches or Millimeters and type values in the Width and Height boxes. 4. Click OK. The system displays the format as specified, and the FORMAT menu appears.
To create format geometry, you use draft entities. For a complete description of how to create draft geometry, see 2-D Drafting. To sketch draft geometry, choose Detail from the FORMAT menu, Sketch from the DETAIL menu, and any command from the DRAFT GEOM menu. The sheet outline is the border of the standard drawing format you selected, as shown in the following figure. Because it is the actual border, it may not appear on pen plots unless you use a paper size larger than the drawing size. Everything within the sheet outline border is also plotted, but you should make an allowance for the plotter hold-down rollers. Sketching a Standard Format
Parametric Notes
When you place a parametric note in a format, the format acquires the appropriate value when you use it in a drawing. For example, if you create the note ``&model_name'' in a format, the system displays it as ``model name.'' When you use the format in a drawing, the note displays the actual model name. For the system to update these parameters when you add the format to a drawing, you can include in parametric notesonly the drawing labels listed in System Parameters for Drawings (except &todays_date). You must include all user-defined model and drawing parameters in format table cells in the form of ``¶m'' using Enter Text in order for the system to update them in a drawing. Format mode interprets the following types of parametric notes:
Notes with symbol instances Notes with standard system symbols Notes with drawing labels Notes with a default tolerance
Note: You cannot use reserved model parameters. If you set ``make_parameters_from_fmt_tables'' to ``yes'' in the configuration file, Pro/ENGINEER does not prompt you to type a value for reserved model parameters because it cannot add them to the drawing. For a list of these parameters, seeIntroduction to Pro/ENGINEER. If you change the format size of a drawing with a table, the system scales the table (in the same way that it scales any views and draft entities) to maintain its location relative to other items and the sheet boundaries. Since the drawing setup file option ``drawing_text_height'' controls the height of any text in the table, Pro/ENGINEER does not scale text that you include in the table. Therefore, it does not maintain a size that is proportional to the rest of the table. You must modify the text height manually.
Pro/ENGINEER correctly evaluates parametric labels that you include in a format table only if you create the drawing first, add the model, and then add the format. It does not
evaluate the labels correctly if you create the drawing, add the format, and then add the model. When you add a format to a drawing with more than one model present, parametric notes can reference only the active drawing model. To include text in a table as a title block, use the Enter Text command in the TABLE menu. If you move the table, the system does not keep the text that you add as a note with the table.
When you add the format to a drawing, Pro/ENGINEER parses any and all that are present of the standard parametric symbols that it supports (see System Parameters for Drawings)and displays the correct values in the table. It does this for every sheet of the drawing on which you use the format, so that the drawing name, model name, or any other standard parameter that you used appears on every sheet that uses that format.
``drawing_units'' (you cannot modify this option) ``drawing_text_height'' ``draw_arrow_style'' ``draw_arrow_length'' ``draw_dot_diameter'' ``draw_attach_sym_width'' ``draw_attach_sym_height'' ``leader_elbow_length'' ``default_font'' ``aux_font'' ``text_width_factor'' ``line_style_standard'' ``node_radius'' ``yes_no_parameter_display'' ``sym_flip_rotated_text''
To reuse an existing format (that is, one that was created in another system), use the interface options (such as DXF, SET, IGES, TIFF, and so on) to import it into your format.
2. Type the name of the sketch to use for the format. 3. Sketch the boundary, title block, and so on, and dimension them. 4. When Pro/ENGINEER successfully regenerates the section, save it using File menu commands. You cannot save text with a sketched format. 5. Create a drawing and do one of the following: o Select Retrieve Format from the Create Format dialog box, and enter the sketch name in the Format box. o After creating the drawing, choose Sheets > Format > Add/Replace. Choose the sketch name (set the ``type'' filter to ``sketcher''). Sketched Format
Rename the sketch of the modified format, so that the name is different from the current format, and use the Add/Replace command to replace the modified sketch in the drawing. Use the Remove command to remove the existing format and rename its ``.frm'' file. Add the modified sketch to the drawing.
Note: You must rename one of the formats; otherwise, if you try to replace the current format, it simply replaces itself with the same ``filename.frm.'' How to Modify and Replace a Sketched Format in Sketcher Mode 1. Retrieve the sketch of the format into Sketcher mode. Pro/ENGINEER cannot retrieve a ``filename.frm'' into Sketcher mode, so ``filename.sec'' must exist. 2. Modify the sketch. You can resketch or redimension, but you cannot add notes, symbols, or draft entities. 3. Save the format sketch.
2. Type the format name. Pro/ENGINEER first looks for a file with a ``.frm'' extension. If it is a sketched format, use the filename extension ``.sec'' when replacing a format with the same name. How to Add an Existing Standard or Sketched Format to a Drawing When You Create the Drawing
1. Click File > New... > Drawing > OK. 2. In the Create Drawing dialog box, click Retrieve Format.
3. Select a format name by doing one of the following: o Choose a name from the Name list in the Format box. o Type [?] in the Name list box and select a name from the Open dialog box. o Click Browse... and select a name from the Open dialog box (see Format Libraries). 4. Click OK. After adding a format to a drawing, you can also use the DRAW FORMAT menu to do one or all of the following, as necessary:
Remove the format from the drawing by choosing Remove. Blank or unblank it by choosing Blank or Unblank. Display a list of formats that are available in the current directory by choosing List.
You cannot use a sheet as a template if it contains views of more than one model. The Copy Process command appears in the SHEETS menu only if you are working with a drawing of a process assembly and you have a license for Pro/PROCESS for ASSEMBLIES or Pro/PROCESS for COMPONENTS.
Format Libraries
To set up a format library, use the configuration file option ``pro_format_dir.'' This option uses a pathname as its value, so you can create a single set of formats that everyone on the system can use, and place them all to a single directory. Use the configuration file option to automatically search this directory for company formats when adding or replacing formats in your drawing and layout. Pro/ENGINEER places modified formats in this directory when you save them.
Using the File Open dialog box, you can retrieve formats from a format library directory within Pro/ENGINEER. To retrieve a format, choose Open from the Pro/ENGINEER File menu; then select Format Dir from the Look In list in the File Open dialog box. Navigate the menu tree until you locate the format.