Copy paste in drawing environment issues

[lmc.engineering]

Hello All,

Throughout my use of Inventor over the years I have consistently run in to issues around copy/pasting note text and other annotative objects within the drawing environment. The issue is that sometimes I can copy paste these objects between sheets, and other time you cannot. It seems to have no pattern to it, and in the times it doesn't work, nothing you do will allow copy/paste. Is there a reason behind this behavior?

Regards

[Cadmanto]

Not sure if this is what you are talking about, but what I have noticed is, when I select text in the annotations text editor and do a Ctrl C, then select "OK" to exit this window and go to another sheet or sometimes another drawing and open up the text window and do a Ctrl V it works fine every time.  When it doesn't work is when I copy the text, if I select the "Cancel" button to exit the text window I am copying from , it wont allow the paste to the new location.

Windows 10 x64 -16GB Ram
Intel i7-6700 @ 3.41ghz
nVidia GTS 250 - 1 GB
Inventor Pro 2020

[lmc.engineering]

Text from the editor window copies just fine for me too, it's when I try and copy the note text object, it's hit and miss whether it works or not. It's the same for drawing views and leader objects, they can be temperamental if using ctrl C ctrl V. It's not a problem that causes too much pain, it's simply one of those things that makes you wonder why it works sometimes and not others..  

[imajar]

I'll take a shot here:  Copy/paste of note boxes and leader note boxes does not work if you have preselected a view.  I dont know why!  Give it a try, copy a note, select a view and ctrl-v wont work.  De-select the view and try ctrl-v again.  

Outside of that, I can't think of any other nuances with copy/paste of notes that I can think of. . .  

[DRoam · Accepted solution]

There are many, many quirks to copy and paste in drawings that can be very frustrating. I'll try to list the ones I can think of:

1. You can't paste if you currently have anything selected (including the thing you just copied). To paste, you must click a blank area to ensure nothing is selected. This can be difficult because often clicking "blank" areas actually results in clicking a View.
2. You can't paste if you just clicked outside of the sheet area. This makes ensuring nothing is selected per number 1 even more difficult.
3. Some types of objects can't be copied at all (such as Balloons, Dimensions, and View Labels). If you have any of these objects in your selection and hit Ctrl+C, NOTHING will get copied, even objects in your selection can be copied.
4. Most types of objects can't be copied with other types of objects. An example is Views and general Text notes. You can copy as many views as you want, OR you can copy as many Text notes as you want -- but if you try and copy both of them together, they just won't copy. In my experience, you can pretty much only ever copy one type of object at once. A very frustrating limitation.
5. Some objects can't be copied and then pasted onto the same sheet. An example is a Parts List. (this was an edit, I forgot this one).
6. You can't copy Views that are "child" views unless you also copy their parent view (such as Projections, Details, Sections, etc.).
7. Sometimes doing certain operations will "clear" your copied objects with no warning. I haven't been able to figure out which operations do this, I just know it happens fairly often.

Like I said, these all make for a very frustrating copy/paste experience in drawings. The best advice I can give is this:

When in doubt, right-click and make sure the "copy" or "paste" button (whichever you're trying to do) is actually there.

If it's not, you're probably breaking one of the "rules" above (or another one that Inventor felt like dreaming up that day).

Hopefully knowing those quirks helps ease your copy/paste woes somewhat! (Of course, fixing them would ease them much more...). 😉

[lmc.engineering]

Thanks for the replies guys. I knew a few of those but not all, so hopefully that will alleviate some woes with copy paste. I guess when we spend so much time in a software package we will inevitable hit on these frustrations. It would be great to have all issues ironed out for all user, however given the complexities involved I don't think that will ever happen..

I'll keep these tip in the back of my mind going forward. Thanks again

[DRoam]

FYI @lmc.engineering and anyone else interested, I created an idea for one of the copy/paste limitations that's been particularly cumbersome lately, in case you'd like to vote to hopefully bring some recognition to it: Drawings: Allow copying more than one type of object at once (addresses #4 in my list above).

EDIT: Also, I didn't link to it above, so here's a link to another copy/paste request I created a while back: Stop being so picky about where we click before pasting in a Drawing (addresses #1 & #2 in my list above).

[raja.dahya]

yup this works. thanks

[Anonymous]

This worked, thank you 🙂

[peter.roman]

this issue is very difficult to work-around in crowded drawings where there is almost nowhere to put your mouse cursor so that it's not over a drawing view and will allow pasting the objects