shared sketch symbols library

[snappyjazz]

I would like to create a collection of blocks or sketch symbols that are common to all users. it looks like I can make a symbols library, but it's local to my machine. Is there another way to make blocks to be used on other workstations?

[jtylerbc · Accepted solution]

It's local on your hard drive by default, but there's nothing that says it has to stay in that location. 

Make a library folder on a shared network drive, and change the Symbol Library path setting on each computer to use that folder.  Now you have a shared library.  To prevent accidental changes, you may want to lock the folder rights down a bit to limit who can edit the library.

My company used to operate this way.  We don't use this method anymore, but the setup was changed mostly due to the fact that we often have users working remotely from various customer locations, and needed to make our users less dependent on access to the network.  For those of us who don't travel, there were never really any problems with the shared library system.

[snappyjazz · Accepted solution]

Step 1: Create the library shown below.

Step 2: To find out where this library is stored (originally), and where to change the location (server location, or for vault) see below:

Step 3: To get this into vault, go to this location in and open the idw:

Step 4: Once open, you can confirm your library by using the model tree:

Step 5: at this point, its like any other inventor file. You can use the vault tab to check in the file.

Step 6: Now that it's in vault, others can do a "Get" of the folder. Then have them do Step 2.

Step 7: To use the sketch symbols, go to the annotate tab, click "Insert Sketch Symbol", and pick the symbol from the library.

I couldn't find this example of how to share a sketch symbol library. I hope this is helpful and saves research time.

[snappyjazz]

@jtylerbc It took me forever to make sense of the documentation and to implement it. I saw that you posted while i was writing my response. Thanks for helping me answer this and clearly state the solution.