Change Component (Block Reference) Color

[Anonymous]

ACADE Version: 2018

Hello ACADE community.

I´m new in ACADE and I was wondering if there´s a way to change the color of a component without having diferent layers.

In other words; I have a layer called SYMS which includes all of the different components (block reference) in the drawing (coils, terminals, leds, etc..) and I want a different color in one of these components (as said before there are in the same layer).

I have tried these options:

1) Change color properties; Doesn´t change the color of the component (no change at all).

2) Change color of the layer; This changes the color of all of the components linked to this layer (SYMS).

In general I´m looking for the best option to have diferent components colors; Taking into consideration that I want to reuse different circuits in the same drawing.

Thanks,

ER

[TRLitsey]

Hi there,

If I understand you, you want to change the color of individual block types?  So if you want all of your coils to  be green you would change the dwg file then use the update tool.

Say you have a block for a coil, the name could be HCR1.  Search your drive for that drawing file.  You may find several of them in different libaries.  Open the one in the libarary you are using and make the changes you want to see, color, attribute placement etc.  Save and close.  Go back to your drawing and use the Swap/Update tool.  Click on the Update radio button then select the block to be updated with your modification.

So that is one way.  Is this what you were looking for?

Good luck

[Anonymous]

Hello TRLitsey,

First of all thanks again for your help. This sounds like a really good and easy way to achieve my goal, I just have a question. In the part where you said "Open the one in the libarary you are using and make the changes you want to see, color, attribute placement etc." are you talking about using the symbol builder to achieve this or there are others ways to make that happen (I just want to make sure there's no other problem about the visualization in my 4k moniotr´s laptop).

Hope it´s understandable,

ER

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@TRLitsey wrote:

Hi there,

If I understand you, you want to change the color of individual block types?  So if you want all of your coils to  be green you would change the dwg file then use the update tool.

Say you have a block for a coil, the name could be HCR1.  Search your drive for that drawing file.  You may find several of them in different libaries.  Open the one in the libarary you are using and make the changes you want to see, color, attribute placement etc.  Save and close.  Go back to your drawing and use the Swap/Update tool.  Click on the Update radio button then select the block to be updated with your modification.

So that is one way.  Is this what you were looking for?

Good luck

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[TRLitsey · Accepted solution]

OK, let me say it this way ...

First you will right click on the name of your active project in the Project Manager window and select Properties.  Open the support paths to verify which folder(s) are being referenced to pull symbols from ....

Once you have noted the folders you can either traverse to the folder or run a search for the file, say in this exapmle we are looking for HCR1.  If you run a search you may find that file in more than one folder.  Metric folders and JIC folders can have files with the same name, they when opened they will look the same but the scale is way different and there may be other suttle difference to, say the font style may be slightly different.  The point is make sure you modify the right file/folder.  If there is any double at all make a backup copy of the file before modifying it.  Could be a good idea to do that anyway.

When you have the file identified you will open it as you would any other drawing, just double click on it is how my system is set up.  Symbol builder has already done its job to create the symbol with the correct attributes and properties.  What you are doing now is playing with the graphics.  That would be changing color, maybe font size, maybe you would like the tag to be center justified or the xref attribute move a little more to the side.  Try not to change any tag names, do not add tags, do not delete tags, it this case tag  = attribute.  Of course you can break those rules but try to get you arms around simple changes first.

And I should say that when you make this change it will take effect on all of the symbols.  Which is to say that when you update HCR1 in the drawing, all of the HCR1 blocks will change according to your modification.

Good luck