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By Root 685 0

imported through DXF (Data eXchange Format) or DWG format is the easiest way to go. Trying to edit an existing border into a different size is usually much more difficult. Adding all the automated annotation information is much easier than editing the lines in the border and title block. What's difficult about it is that SolidWorks is not very good at handling very large sketch data, which is what it considers a drawing format to be. If you disable sketch relations, moving sketch entities correctly can be difficult, and if you enable sketch relations, the performance is very slow.

Customizing an existing format

The simple solution is to customize an existing format of the size or sizes you require for your own use. This generally works well, and you can usually finish the task in a few minutes, depending on your requirements. The easiest option is to take the existing SolidWorks sample formats and add a few things such as a company name, logo, and tolerance block to them. You can also use formats from other drawings, editing and saving them out as your own. If you really need to make extensive edits to a format or create a new one from scratch, I would consider using DraftSight, a free 2D AutoCAD clone provided by Dassault Systèmes, the parent company of SolidWorks.

Using sample formats

The sample formats installed with SolidWorks include ANSI sizes A through E, and ISO sizes A0 through A4. You can probably find enough space on the formats to place a company logo and some standard notes. These templates are located in different directories in Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. Choose Tools⇒Options⇒File Locations to locate the path for your templates.

You cannot open a format directly — it must be on a drawing — and, so, to get a closer look at the format, you must make a new drawing using the format.

Note

Templates that have been saved with a format already on them skip the step of prompting you to select a format. This enables you to create new drawings more quickly. If you select one of the default SolidWorks templates, these do not have formats on them, so you are prompted to select a format immediately. Figure 14.3 shows the interface for selecting a format that displays after you have selected the template for a drawing.

FIGURE 14.3

Selecting a format

Editing a format

In the drawing, you are either editing the sheet or editing the format. You can think of the sheet as being a piece of transparent Mylar over the top of the drawing border format. In order to get to the format, you have to peel back the Mylar layer. Drawing views go onto the sheet, so when you edit the format, any drawing views that may be there disappear.

To peel back the sheet and gain access to the format, right-click a blank area of the sheet and select Edit Sheet Format. Alternatively, you can also access the sheet format by right-clicking on the sheet tab in the lower-left corner of the SolidWorks window. This RMB menu is shown in Figure 14.4. Be careful of the terms here, which include Sheet and Sheet Format. The sketch lines of the format light up like a sketch becoming active, and the “Editing Sheet Format” message appears at the lower-right corner on the status bar.

FIGURE 14.4

Selecting the edit sheet format

The lines in the format border are regular SolidWorks sketch entities, but they display a little differently. Also, sketch relations are sometimes disabled in formats because solving the relations causes the software to be a bit sluggish. Typically, Trim, Extend, and Stretch functions are the best sketch tools for editing lines.

You can use most common image types to insert logo or other image data onto your drawing or format by choosing Insert⇒Picture. Not all compression styles are supported, however. I have had difficulty with compressed TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) images. Be aware of the file size of the image when you put it into the format, as images can be large, and all that extra information will travel around with each drawing that you create from the format. Figure 14.5 shows a bitmap placed