Style Library Creation / Migration

[TheRham]

I am looking at moving from controlling my Styles in template files into a Style Library.  So how exactly would I best do this?  Create a new Style Library in the Style Library Manager, set it in "Style Library 1" (this makes the new Style Library "active", yes?), open my template files, and under the Manage tab, "Save" the document styles to the new Style Library?  Should I then delete my Document Styles from the template?

When you get a new release of Inventor, how do you generally go about pushing your Style Library into the new release?  Do you just copy-paste the old Style Library from the old release "Design Data" folder into the new release "Design Data" folder?  Do you start a new Style Library in the new release, compare to the old Style Library, and push the old into into the new?

[SBix26 · Accepted solution]

The style library in use is defined first by the Application Options > File tab > Design Data, and may be overridden by the project (.ipj), so you can create a style library wherever you wish, and named as you wish.  I think that you will want to use the Style Managment Wizard to create a library from your templates.  Disclaimer: I have not used the Wizard, so I can't offer any help or advice in that direction.

For new releases, I create a server location for common files related to the new version, then copy the Design Data folder from the installed location to the server location.  I also copy the styles library from the previous version to the same server area and use the Style Manager to migrate that copy to the new version.  I then go through each category in the new default library and delete styles that I won't use (JIS & GOST drawing styles, for example), and copy styles into it from my previous version library.  There may be new style categories available, in which case I need to quit the Style Manager and open my template and see what kinds of customizing I wish to do in that new style category.  If I use some of the "as delivered" styles, the Style Manager will indicate if the two versions are not the same, and again I would need to quit the Style Manager and investigate using the Styles Editor in Inventor.

Hope that's useful.  I'm dreading the job for 2013 due to the change from Colors & Materials to Appearances.

[TheRham]

Exactly the kind of thing I was looking for, thanks.  Sometimes it's helpful to hear real-world workflows, as much as reading tutorials/FAQs... I appreciate it.