Community
Inventor Forum
Welcome to Autodesk’s Inventor Forums. Share your knowledge, ask questions, and explore popular Inventor topics.
cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Can someone please ANSWER this Inventor/AutoCad issue with attributes?

5 REPLIES 5
Reply
Message 1 of 6
EDDIEB33
615 Views, 5 Replies

Can someone please ANSWER this Inventor/AutoCad issue with attributes?

I am trying to update my title block with a new company logo.  I am saving a title block from Inventor 2010 to 2010 Autocad DWG file.  We have some older drawings done in CAD so I like to use the same format and title block. 

 

However since Inventor 2010 when I save the title block to a .DWG. and then try to edit attributes with ATTEDIT, I cannot.  The fields are grayed out and will not let me enter any input.  There is just a little window to the right labeled .... and pulls up a text editing dialog box. 

Comparing the old title block I created from Inventor 2009 and converted to .DWG in which the attributes still work fine.  Then looking at the details from 2010 compared to 2009 file the only thing I can see different is in the edit attributes dialog box is, under MODES.  For the 2010 file Multiline text is checked and grayed out so I cannot turn it off.  In the 2009 file that works correctly, this is not checked off. 

 

I have read many posts here with the same problem, and unfortunately nobody ever replies back with a valid answer or how to fix it.  So is there a way I can fix this?  Or is there a way I can just delete the logo inside the title block and keep all the attributes valid and use the old title block, since the new way from 2010 when exporting sucks and you cannot edit anything.

Any help would be appreciated, I posted this topic like last year and nobody replied back, and ended up just using my old version.  If I still had 2009 Inventor I would just save it from there and everything would be fine now, but having 2010 only installed now I cannot get around this problem.

Thanks,
Eddie

 

5 REPLIES 5
Message 2 of 6
jtylerbc
in reply to: EDDIEB33

I ran into the same issue with Inventor symbols in an exported drawing a while ago.  You can edit the multiline attributes, but you have to click that little button to get to the text editor.  It's easy to miss if you don't know about it, and a nuisance even if you do.

 

Because of that, I did a little research at the time to figure out how to fix it.  I came across (don't remember where, or I would give credit) a LISP routine that converts the multiline attributes back to standard single-line.

 

Code for the routine is:

 

; command that converts multi-line attributes to standard attributes
(defun c:convertMattribute (/ ss i)
(vl-load-com)
(if (setq ss (ssget '((0 . "ATTDEF"))))
(progn
(setq i 0)
(repeat (sslength ss)
(vla-put-mtextattribute
(vlax-ename->vla-object
(ssname ss i))
:vlax-false
)
(setq i (1+ i))
)
)
)
(princ)
)

 

 

 

Message 3 of 6
EDDIEB33
in reply to: jtylerbc

Ah ok, I see how it works now.  I just know some of the drafters here won't like it, cause they were used to the way before where you could just tab from one field to the next in the attribute box instead of having to click on this text editor thing each time.

 

I am not experienced with CODE, so I wouldn't know how to implement that.  Also, the code would have to be added to each individual persons machine correct?  Thanks for the reply though.  Why does Autodesk have to change something that worked so much easier before in all previous releases...

Message 4 of 6
jtylerbc
in reply to: EDDIEB33

Don't know why it changed - prior to your post, I didn't even know that it used to be different.  My previous employer didn't use AutoCAD, so I didn't ever attempt to perform this task until version 2010.  As far as I knew, it had always been like this.

 

The code is AutoCAD LISP code, so you'll actually run it in AutoCAD after the export from Inventor.  Create a .txt file (Notepad), copy and paste in the code I provided, and save it.  Then change the file extension from .txt to .lsp.  That's all it takes to make it a LISP file, but you still have to load it into AutoCAD.

 

In AutoCAD, go to Tools, Load Application.  Browse to and select your .LSP file, then click Load.  Close the dialog box.  You can then type the name of the command (convertmattribute) to fire off the code as though it were a command.  If this is a routine you will use often, you can also add it to your "startup suite", so that it loads automatically when AutoCAD starts.

 

When you run the command, it will prompt you to select objects, so then you just pick your block, then hit Enter.  All of the multiline attributes in the selected blocks should convert back to normal ones.

 

The downside of this solution is that it is an after-the-fact fix.  I have found no way to PREVENT it from making these attributes multiline - this just turns them back.  As a result, if you use this, you will have to go in and do this on every drawing you export.

 

As for loading it on every machine - it would need to be on the machine of every Inventor user that exports stuff to AutoCAD, so they can fix it before giving it to your AutoCAD drafters.  Your pure AutoCAD guys wouldn't necessarily need to have it installed, unless you want them to be able to do the conversion themselves.

Message 5 of 6
EDDIEB33
in reply to: jtylerbc

I just tried what you mentioned with the lisp file.  I copied it to notepad, saved it as .lsp.  I was able to load in in autocad successfully.  I opened the file having issues with, entered the command convertmattribute, selected the title block, and the same window comes up as before.  Not being able to add any text to the fields without hitting the text editor button to the right.  So sorry, it didn't work for me.

Message 6 of 6
jtylerbc
in reply to: EDDIEB33

Okay, sorry.  It's been a while since I've used this, and left out some steps.

 

Rather than running the routine and picking a block, edit the block first, then run the LISP routine and pick the attributes directly.

 

This will fix the attributes in the block definition, so new instances of the block should work as expected.  However, the instance already placed will be out of sync with the new definitions, and will still act like multiline.  Enter "battman" in the command line to get to the block attribute manager.  Select the title block in the dropdown list, and click the Sync button.

 

It should then work as a normal single-line attribute.

 

Can't find what you're looking for? Ask the community or share your knowledge.

Post to forums  

Autodesk Design & Make Report