Creating New Drawing Styles & Title Blocks

[Anonymous]

I'm in the process of creating a template idw for our workplace, there will initally only be two users, myself and another person. I have a couple questions about setting up templates.  We use Inventor 2014.

For Styles, I used the Style Library Manager and Created a New Style Library. I deleted all the styles we aren't going to use, the DIN's, GOST's, etc. and kept only the ANSI's. 

1.  If I make changes to any style or substyle should I give it a new name to avoid conflicts with IV Standards?  Or just make sure I Migrate/Update when we get a new Release of IV.

2.  For Title Blocks, I created an A, B, C, & D Size Sheet Formats in the template. Is it possible yet to have those sheets set so A & B will plot to the Laser at there given size and the C & D will plot to the Designjet at their size without having to change the paper size and printer?

Thanks, Kim

[jtylerbc · Accepted solution]

1.  For the most part, I would say it doesn't matter either way, and is more personal/company preference.  So long as at upgrade time you either back up the Design Data folder and copy it back in after installation, or save your styles back to the updated library from the template file, you should be able to make it work.

My personal preference is to point everyone at a shared copy of templates and styles on a network drive - in this case, upgrading is even easier, since the local copy on the hard drive isn't used.  I use the Style Library Manager program one time to update the network copy, and that's about it.

2.  No, I don't believe you can do that.  If you're used to AutoCAD, Inventor doesn't really have the same concept of a page setup.  As a result, there is no way to save a printer/paper size setting like that.

[Anonymous]

Thanks John

It'd be nice if paper size, printer, etc. settings could be saved individually with each Sheet Format.

Kim

[jtylerbc]

I agree.  There are some posts on the Ideastation boards regarding the print setup in Inventor - you might want to check them out and give them a kudo if they're close to what you are looking for.

Here are a couple (there may be others as well):

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Inventor-IdeaStation/Print-Dialogue-Box/idi-p/4424745

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Inventor-IdeaStation/Print-Command-Page-Setup/idi-p/4307510

[Anonymous]

If you send me an email, I have some files (bmp, ivb) & 2 word documents on how to install that will print to A & B. Someone may be able to modify it to C & D. It will print D size on B size paper (Haven't tried C)

It works on 13 & 14 I know.

Here is the code:

Sub PrintNow()
'
'Variable declaration
Dim fa As DrawingDocument
'
'Checks to see if drawing document is active
'If a drawing document is not active displays msg and exits sub
If ThisApplication.ActiveDocument.DocumentType = kDrawingDocumentObject Then
Set fa = ThisApplication.ActiveDocument
PrintThis fa
Else
MsgBox ("Not a drawing document")
Exit Sub
End If
'
End Sub

Sub PrintThis(fa As DrawingDocument)
'
'Variable declarations
Dim s As Sheet, Number 'As Integer
Dim dpm As DrawingPrintManager
Set dpm = fa.PrintManager
'
'Sets printer to the Kyocera
dpm.Printer = "Kyocera KM-5050"   <-- Change this to your printer
'
'Sets scale mode to best fit
dpm.ScaleMode = kPrintBestFitScale
'
'Variable used to determine print range
Number = InputBox("Current Sheet [1] or Print All [2]", "Print Options", 1)
'
'Prints option 1 or option 2
Select Case Number
Case 1
'Determines papersize using sheet dimensions (cm)
Set s = fa.ActiveSheet
If s.Width * s.Height > 604 Then
dpm.PaperSize = kPaperSize11x17
Else
dpm.PaperSize = kPaperSizeLetter
End If
'
'Determines paper orientation using sheet dimensions
If s.Width > s.Height Then
dpm.Orientation = kLandscapeOrientation
Else
dpm.Orientation = kPortraitOrientation
End If
'
'Sets print range
dpm.PrintRange = kPrintCurrentSheet
'
'Submits print to printer
dpm.SubmitPrint
Case ""
Exit Sub
Case 2
'Loops throught each sheet in drawing document
For Each s In fa.Sheets
'
'activate 1st sheet
s.Activate
'
'Determines papersize using sheet dimensions (cm)
If s.Width * s.Height > 604 Then
dpm.PaperSize = kPaperSize11x17
Else
dpm.PaperSize = kPaperSizeLetter
End If
'
'Determines paper orientation using sheet dimensions
If s.Width > s.Height Then
dpm.Orientation = kLandscapeOrientation
Else
dpm.Orientation = kPortraitOrientation
End If
'
'Sets print range
dpm.PrintRange = kPrintCurrentSheet
'
'Submits print to printer
dpm.SubmitPrint
'
Next
Case Else
MsgBox ("Incorrect input value. Please select 1 or 2 for print options")
End Select
'
End Sub

[Anonymous]

Thanks, my email is kim <Dot> bruns AT rapidengineering <Dot> com

[jtylerbc]

dlmsdm1,

This macro is very interesting to me.  I would love to have a quick, one-click "print to the right paper size" command.  Unfortunately, that's not what I'm seeing when I run your macro.  Instead, the file prints to the specified printer, but prints on 8.5x11 regardless of the actual drawing size.

Any idea what's going wrong?

[Anonymous]

Not really. I have used it on 6 pc's and 3 different printers for 3 years now.

You might try playing with the 604#. I un-installed mine and re-installed, still works.

May have to check printer settings for papersize and adjust code to match.