Open drawing right click not working

[sbromley]

I've just found out about right clicking on a part in the browser and choosing "Open Drawing", but - it then opens a window where I have to browse to the folder the drawing is saved to open it. This rather defeats the object of this command. I'd have thought it would know where the drawing file was and open it straight away!

Is it because the file name of the drawing has been modified to include the drawing number?

[-niels- · Accepted solution]

Yes, for the "open drawing" function to work the filename of the part/assembly and the drawing need to be identical.
Otherwise you get the dialog to find the drawing, as you have noticed.

It's been like that since it was introduced, not sure if there are any ideas to improve this on the ideas board... might be worth having a search if you think it should be.

[ToddPig]

In Solidworks, if you right-click : open drawing, it opens the drawing that is linked to that part. It's very easy. It's things like this that I wish Inventor would catch up to other programs on.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Todd,

Many thanks for the feedback! I could be wrong but I think SWX limits one model file (part or assembly) in one drawing, right? If yes, open the linked component file makes sense.

Inventor does not have the limitation. A user is allowed to create as many drawing views referencing different components within a drawing file. Open linked component workflow may not be unique. This is why we limit the open to the same named component which is most frequently used paradigm.

Thanks again!

[ToddPig]

Johnson,

Solidworks does not limit the number of models/assemblies that be on a single drawing. But it does eliminate the "Open drawing" from part feature. But typically, unique parts would have unique drawings. If parts were similar, then you could use configurations, and all of these configurations could be on one drawing. And in this case, the "Open drawing" feature works.

In other words, the "Open Drawing from part file" feature has more limitations in Inventor then Solidworks.

I use this feature all the time in Solidworks, and rarely use it Inventor. In fact, when I first discovered this feature in Inventor, I showed a few co-workers. The first person I showed had more than one part in the drawing, and thus it wasn't a good example. The second person was using iparts, and it didn't work. I stopped showing people this feature.