Copy and Pasting a Sheet in a 2019 Drawing

[Anonymous]

Hello.  Before updating to 2019 I could copy and paste a sheet into the same drawing.  Now I can only paste the copied sheet into a new drawing, and then copy and paste it back into the original drawing.  Please tell me this is a bug that is being fixed or there is just a new and hopefully easier way to do this previously useful and easy procedure.

Thanks!
Travis

[Anonymous]

Hello.  Before updating to 2019 I could copy and paste a sheet into the same drawing.  Now I can only paste the copied sheet into a new drawing, and then copy and paste it back into the original drawing.  Please tell me this is a bug that is being fixed or there is just a new and hopefully easier way to do this previously useful and easy procedure.

Thanks!
Travis

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Travis,

I guess you did it on a different product. Inventor never supports Copy and Paste sheets within the same drawing. It is always copying a sheet from one drawing file and pasting it to another drawing file.

Many thanks!

[kelly.young]

Hello @Anonymous I see that you are visiting as a new member to the Inventor Forum.
Welcome to the Autodesk Community!

Are you saying the Sheet as in the whole page, or a View? Can you record a screencast or set of screenshots showing what you are trying to do as I think the verbiage might be the confusion. 

Please select the Accept as Solution button if a post solves your issue or answers your question.

[Anonymous]

I am trying to copy and paste the highlighted "Sheet" into the same drawing.  Both my co-worker and I both recall being able to do this before the 2019 update.

Sheet.PNG

[swalton]

I can not copy a sheet within the same drawing file in Inventor 2014 or 2018.  I can copy a sheet from one drawing to another in both releases.

There has been Idea posts requesting this behavior since 2014. 

See:

 https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ideas/i-need-to-be-able-to-copy-a-drawing-sheet-into-the-sam...

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ideas/copy-paste/idi-p/6580810

Both of these have been moved to Future Consideration, so I don't think Autodesk places a high priority on changing this behavior.

[Anonymous]

There is a work around to this, Open a new "dummy" drawing file and copy the page you want into it, then copy the page back into your current drawing. Its a bit of wasted work, but much faster than re-doing the entire page.

[Cris-Ideas]

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@johnsonshiue wrote:
....

I guess you did it on a different product. Inventor never supports Copy and Paste sheets within the same drawing. It is always copying a sheet from one drawing file and pasting it to another drawing file.

...

---

Always when I waste time doing just that I wander why on earth this simple functionality was never added in to inventor.

If it is possible to copy sheet from one drawing file to another, what is the problem to just allow to paste it in to the original file?

Is there any good explanation? I suppose not.

Cris.

[Mark.Lancaster · Accepted solution]

@Anonymous 

Based on another Inventor forum posting, you may want to look at this https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/inventor-products/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcartic... using the macro provided.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Cris,

I wish I had a crystal ball showing answer to every question. Unfortunately, I really don't know. I would say it was probably incomplete implementation. The project team intended to support it but it ran out of time within the allowed time frame.

I believe this is captured as one of the stories in our backlog. Let me confirm with the project team.

Many thanks!

[jibs3]

Hi,

I used the macro you linked to. It worked for a couple hours after I used it, but now it gives me this error message:

jibs3_0-1591729107142.png

When I go to dubug, it shows me this:

jibs3_1-1591729207865.png

Any thoughts or ideas? I'm not too familiar with VBA.

[Blades741]

I realize that this question has already been answered, but I just wanted to add this: if the sheet you are copying has a BOM or BOM balloons, you will not have the "Copy" option available on the sheet until you delete said BOM & balloons. Only then will you have "Copy" available when you right-click on the sheet. I just now ran across a situation where I needed to copy & paste in this manner, and discovered it would not work until BOM's & balloons were deleted. 

[efwilkens]

Argghh... that's really what I wanted to copy and paste- a bunch of subassemblies and BOMs that are used in different drawings. Not much good without the balloons and BOMs. But still, I can save the drawing, delete the balloons and BOMs, then restore after I copy it. A bit dangerous. 

[Cris-Ideas]

Hi,

I am copying sheets all the time and never had this kind of problem as you describe with balloons and parts lists.

And even did a quick test just before writing this post.

If you share the files (all of them) I am happy to try (AI 2021 the latest).

Cris.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! I suspect you were trying to two create two different PartsLists (Structured and PartOnly) of the same assembly on the same sheet. This workflow is generally blocked to avoid colliding item numbers.

The backdoor access is to create a new drawing, create the PartsList referencing a different BOM structure, and then copy the entire sheet back to the old drawing. However, the item number can be unpredictable, since #1 item in Structured PartsList may not be the same item as in PartOnly PartsList.

Many thanks!

[peter.kapitola]

Despite the official advice, there is a way to do it! 

Firstly (let me get it out of my system) I was disappointed (but sadly at this point not that surprised) that Inventor would have such a nonsensical quirk as not letting you copy and paste sheets within the same drawing. It's the sort of thing that users would need to do often but the programmers at Autodesk (who seemingly don't actually use Inventor) wouldn't actually implement. Oh yes, there's a work around (copying into another drawing and then back). But that sort of menial task is left up to the user. OK, end of rant.  🙂

So here's the trick. Right-click and copy the sheet, as per normal. Then, instead of right-clicking and trying to find "paste", first left-click on some blank space in the browser panel, then right click. Surprise - the Paste button appears and works!

There's another way of doing it too. Simply do the same procedure as above, but use Ctrl+C and Ctrl-V. You will still need to do the left-click in the browser before pressing Ctrl+V though. The left-click is the trick. 

No more creating dummy drawings just to do a simple copy and paste. Inventor, please take note and (in the nicest possible way) get a handle on your own program. 🙂 

Kudos to @draftingG29CQ for figuring this one out. 

Screencast link: https://autode.sk/421Mos7. This has been tested on 2023.2 and 2023.2.1. 

[swalton · Accepted solution]

Autodesk added the ability to copy a sheet inside a single drawing file with the Inventor 2021.2 service pack.  

See the What's New section for 2021.2. 

https://help.autodesk.com/view/INVNTOR/2023/ENU/?guid=GUID-51061B43-F6EF-477E-8D78-C288B92DA3E6

And

https://help.autodesk.com/view/INVNTOR/2021/ENU/?guid=GUID-F99097C7-0BB4-4B8E-A31E-91C246F93D4E

[peter.kapitola]

Hi @swalton 

It's good that Autodesk (finally) added it, but it's still a mess, since:

1. This help page still says that it's not possible, and it's the first Google result for "copy and paste a sheet in same Inventor drawing". So many people (like I did) are going to see that result and think that it's not possible. Thankfully this forum thread is the second result at least. 
2. It hasn't been implemented properly in the right-click menu (it requires left-clicking in the browser first). This will reinforce the idea that it's not possible to most people who try it out. I don't know anyone who uses the Tools > Clipboard option as this requires multiple additional clicks. Strangely, you can right-click and paste in the browser if you have copied from right-clicking in the graphics window or by using the Tools menu. But you cannot right-click in the browser and then right-click and paste in the browser without (unintuitively) left clicking first. 

So, still to be fixed:

1. Update the help page. I've already provided this feedback through the "Was this information helpful?" link at the bottom of the page. I suggest others do the same. 
2. Fix the right-click implementation. 

Also please spread the word that it is possible.