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ptc-48646031-Visitor
1-Visitor
February 12, 2014
Question

Copy/Paste, unnecessarily complex....

  • February 12, 2014
  • 7 replies
  • 2696 views

Please tell me there is a quicker way to copy/paste a symbol or another drawing element to multiple sheets.

and why is it a "feature" to open up a seperate window for a copy/paste? i can see it being handy for an advanced copy/paste, how hard is it to just paste the new one close to the old one!?!


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7 replies

TomD.inPDX17-Peridot
17-Peridot
February 12, 2014

I don't think the developers have ever used, or even seen M$ Office.

I just ran into this the other day. It is nice that it asks, but it is a bit off-putting at 1st glance.

ptc-48646031-VisitorAuthor
1-Visitor
February 12, 2014

Antonius Dirriwachter wrote:

I don't think the developers have ever used, or even seen M$ Office.

office and 95% of other software.

i can see the whole seperate window thing for picking, actually, no, I can't see any benefit to the secondary window even for a more detailed copy/paste operation.

How about: copy>"pick point to copy from">"pick point to place" all in the same window. makes sense.

it's been a little over a year working with Creo/WF and the only thing I am convinced that PTC does right is handle relationships in large assemblies well. that's about it. Creation/Manipulating/Workflow/Interface/Methodologies are, well, you know.

It's almost like there is an oppositional defiance oath to not follow the "norms" of the industry. smh

edit: if not follwing the norms, atleast give us end user tools to easily script things out. not develop full javascript plugins or late 80's mapkeys.

ok monthly rant over, i feel better

dschenken2-Explorer
2-Explorer
February 12, 2014

A mapkey that selects Absolute Coords, 0<enter>, 0<enter>, Absolute Coords, 0<enter>, 0<enter> will place the copy exactly where the original was. One I made was the mapkey 00.

Part of the reason for the separate window is that many of the items that are copied/pasted have no good answer for the "paste near" part. Symbols in particular can have enormous X and Y extents, but only appear to be a tiny item. A conventional 'near' would avoid placing a symbol over-top of itself, and with symbols, that might be an inch away or eight feet away. You can make up a symbol easily - create a symbol and draw a line segment and then another eight feet away. Create a symbol group so that one of the line segments is visible, but the other has to have its group selected to be seen. Viola. Is the primary version of the symbol pasted an inch away because it's only a little line segment or eight feet away to prevent overlapping the symbol extents.?

ptc-48646031-VisitorAuthor
1-Visitor
February 12, 2014

thank you for detailed explanation but I don't understand why extents come into play at all.

i might actually see the benefit if Creo would recognize the corners of a table or symbol as a vertex for the origin, but I can't pick anything.

i did end up making a macro to copy/paste right on top of each other.

JonathanHodgson13-Aquamarine
13-Aquamarine
February 20, 2014

The pop-up window might be useful if it actually showed any geometry that you could select as an accurate reference (see "proper 2D CAD" )

As it is, it still gives you no more accuracy than if you just dragged the pasted item by eye.

Mind you, I've recently been obliged to change from AutoCAD LT to SolidEdge for my 2D CAD and while there are certain nice features in SE, one that I'm desperately missing is "copy with base point". When implemented properly it's incredibly useful.

    SolidPerks1-Visitor
    1-Visitor
    August 7, 2014

    Bit of an old topic, but response may be revlevant to some. I agree regarding Copy/Paste. I'm in the habit of Ctrl-C & Ctrl-V, works in SolidWorks . Anyway, I found the Copy Translate tool and made a map key from it. Now I can type 'cx' then select my item, give it two more clicks for 'from-to' location, done. Two nice things, the tool has an arrow indicator, and the screen can be panned via middle mouse button or 3Dmouse . Here's the mapkey code if anyone is interested, plug it into your config.pro file.

    mapkey cx @MAPKEY_LABELCopy-Trans;~ Command `ProCmdDwgXformTranslateCp`;\

    mapkey(continued) @PAUSE_FOR_SCREEN_PICK;~ Activate `GET SELECT` `done_sel`;\

    mapkey(continued) @PAUSE_FOR_SCREEN_PICK;@PAUSE_FOR_SCREEN_PICK;1;

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