New User Question

[jim_g]

To start I am a new user
My question is this; I have a design with several components I have made the components as I have read here.
1. New Design, rename.
2. Create First Component.
3. Make First Component Active.
4. Create Sketches and Bodies within First Component.
5. Create Second Component
6. Make Second Component Active
7. Create Sketches and Bodies within Second Component
8. Make main Design Active.
9. Create Joints within Main Drawing.
Now I want to use one of the components in a new design but in the file or data area on the left the only thing is the assy. File. Is there a way that when I am doing, what I call a bottom up design, which each component is saved separately. Am I doing something wrong? I have found that I can copy the component and start a new design and paste component in the new design and save and have a single component that can be edited. Remember I am New to Fusion360 and have much to learn.
Thank You for your time.

[TrippyLighting · Accepted solution]

The way you descibe it you have now 2 components in your current design.

To use one of these components in another design you can right'click on the component in the browser and select "save as".

This will save the componet into it's own file/document in the data panel.

Now you can insert the document into other designs.

By default it is insterted as a linked component. If you want to edit that component in your new design to create a differnt component you need to break the link.

Otherwise you'l need to edite the component in the component file and update the new design. It will tell you when linked components are out of date

[jim_g]

Thank You Very Much I will try that this afternoon