1. Create and Share Templates

How to customize and share templates for drawings, parts and assemblies etc. in SOLIDWORKS?

Introduction

Templates allow you to retrieve properties useful to the Design Office, Workshop and Purchasing departments, and to add elements such as logos to your drawings.

This allows you to improve quality and efficiency. This article explains how to create them..

Step 1 : create your part templates

To retrieve properties from your drawing template, you must first declare them in Part and Assembly templates. Let's create these templates:

1. First, click on File > New

2. Double-click on Part.

3. Click on File > Properties  then add the desired properties to the template and click OK.

Here are some examples of interesting properties when working with SOLIDWORKS :

- Material

- Mass

- Revision

- Author

- Supplier, project number...

4. You can modify document parameters, such as unit information, line styles, and fonts. To do so, click on Tools > Options>Document properties.

5. Bonus : vous pouvez également ajouter des esquisses, des notes ou des fonctions dans votre modèle. Ils réapparaitront pour chaque fichier créé grâce à ce dernier.

6. To save the template, click on File > Save as Template.

7. Enter a title and description, then choose one of these options.

• Create as released (Your collaborators will automatically have access to the template and no more modifications will be possible).
• Create as private (You will be the only one able to see and modify the template.)
  

  Your part template is created.

 

Click on Options>Default templates, then activate the option "prompt user to select a document template".

Once you create a new document, SOLIDWORKS woill ask you which template you wish to use :

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Step 2 : repeat the process to create an assembly template

Once you've defined your part template, you'll probably have to repeat the above steps with an assembly.

 

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Step 3 : Drawing template

Now that our templates contain all the properties we're interested in, let's see how to customize the background so that it fills in automatically.

 

1. First, create a part from the template you created in step 1.

2. Create a drawing from this part by clicking on New>Make drawing from part.

3. Edit the sheet format:

Right-click on sheet 1, choose "Edit Sheet Format" to conform it to specific standards and part properties. Afterward, adjust the layout of lines and various attributes in your title block.

4. Add your properties to your title block:

First, click on annotation where you want to add it in your title block.

In the Text Format menu, click on the "link to a property " icon.

Check "template found here" and select "Sketch view specified in sheet properties" in the drop-down menu.

In the "Property name" drop-down, choose the property you're interested in, such as mass:

The displayed value is noted in "Evaluated Value." Click OK.

Your property is successfully added to the drawing background.

 

5. Save the template

Having created our title block, let's see how to save it.

Click on File>Save as template.

You have two options:

• Create as released (your colleagues will automatically have access to the template and no more modifications will be possible).
• Create as draft (only you will be able to view and modify the template = draft state)

 

Your drawing is saved and available for all your collaborators.

You'll find it in the same location as your part and assembly templates.

 

Your colleagues can't see the templates you've created?

Click on Options>Default templates then activate the option "Ask user to select a document template".

When you create a new document, SOLIDWORKS will ask you which template to use ("advanced" templates):

Bonus :

Would you like to have access to your properties on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform? It's explained in this article: Attribute mapping