Skip to main content
joe_morton
18-Opal
joe_morton18-Opal
18-Opal
February 16, 2017
Solved

How to manage general drawing notes

  • February 16, 2017
  • 6 replies
  • 11767 views

I'm working on setting up standard notes for our company. I haven't found any satisfactory way to do this yet. The main failing is that Creo notes don't have formatting for numbered lists. I can create these manually, but if a standard note needs to be added or deleted, the entire note may need to be renumbered. Also, if a note needs to be resized (particularly made narrower), word wrap doesn't understand the intent of indentations and wraps to the left edge of the note, without preserving the indent.

Has anyone found a way to manage this better?

Best answer by joe_morton

Here's the system we've settled on:

 

  • I have a spreadsheet that lists all the potential notes going down the rows, and then in the columns, I have the different categories of drawings and an X if that note applies to that drawing type. You can filter for X's on a given column to see what that particular note set should be.
  • From there, I created a a macro that helps format the note sets with numbering, so a complete note set can be copy/pasted.
  • I maintain a directory of text files with the default notes for each drawing type that our engineer's config.pro file points to, so they can easily import a default set of notes for the type of drawing they're working on.
  • Once an engineer has imported a note set, they may need to edit it. If they have to renumber it, it's manual from there. (Not ideal, but manageable).

 

The main benefit of this method is that our notes are highly consistent across different drawing types, since they're all generated and reviewed on a single spreadsheet.

6 replies

Chris3
Chris321-Topaz I
21-Topaz I
February 16, 2017

I know some companies have a drawing that has all of their notes on it and then they copy and paste them from there.

We have a customized script that allows the user to pick what notes they want and then it saves those and imports them onto the drawing. This is all done via a mapkey and some external scripting.

M
mdebower18-Opal
18-Opal
February 16, 2017

As an alternative to Christopher Rees method,  I know some companies keep a simple text file of all the notes.  Then using mapkeys inserts it into the drawing and modifies it as needed.

-marc

Marc M. DeBower

CAD / PLM Systems Manager

TriMark Corporation

New Hampton, Iowa

M
MikeMarcoux12-Amethyst
12-Amethyst
February 20, 2017

In additional to Marc's method, we keep several different text files for different types of drawings (assembly, machined, sheet metal, weldments) and separate notes for some customers (we're a consulting firm).  We haven't found a clear way to do the numbering, but our approach is to import the entire note, delete what is not relevant, and then to number at the end.  If your title block contains references to the notes, just make sure they still match up.   Importing note text from a text file is still the easiest method I've found so far.  There is far to much variability in terms of note space and drawing type to have one catchall note set.  It's too unwieldy to maintain effectively. 

S
SYNDAKIT15-Moonstone
15-Moonstone
February 20, 2017

I just finished doing this same thing. I manage 300+ drawings so I also needed to find a way to control all of them from one place. It seems that I have found a solution for my needs but I think in order to find a solution that will work for your situation, we may need a bit more information. Could you upload a screen shot of an example of what you are shooting for?

jbailey
jbailey18-Opal
18-Opal
January 11, 2018

It seems this has been addressed in Creo 3 M140 at the latest.

 

We too have struggled with this.  I tested it out and Creo now respects line formatting and when you wrap, it keeps the numbers at the left.  This works with either just dumb text in an annotation, or if the information is driven from a model parameter.

N
Niru_V10-Marble
10-Marble
January 14, 2018

Hi,

 

Maybe I'm a little late to reply, but here are my suggestions. 

Formatting for Numbered Lists:

Rather than using simple Notepad to create/edit text files, use Notepad++ which can give you numbered lists.

Bullets-and-Numbering-in-Notepad++

Notepad++ Column Editor Trick

Managing Multiple Notes for Different types of Drawings/Customers:

Add a Config.Pro option pro_note_dir mapping to the folder having notes for different types of drawings/customers. [Refer Images below]

Addition/Deletion of Notes:

Create a temporary new Text file with all required notes and edit using Notepad++ and save it then import using Note from file in Creo.

 

This might not help you 100%, But I think it can take you halfway through.

joe_morton
18-Opal
joe_morton18-OpalAuthorAnswer
18-Opal
December 8, 2022

Here's the system we've settled on:

 

  • I have a spreadsheet that lists all the potential notes going down the rows, and then in the columns, I have the different categories of drawings and an X if that note applies to that drawing type. You can filter for X's on a given column to see what that particular note set should be.
  • From there, I created a a macro that helps format the note sets with numbering, so a complete note set can be copy/pasted.
  • I maintain a directory of text files with the default notes for each drawing type that our engineer's config.pro file points to, so they can easily import a default set of notes for the type of drawing they're working on.
  • Once an engineer has imported a note set, they may need to edit it. If they have to renumber it, it's manual from there. (Not ideal, but manageable).

 

The main benefit of this method is that our notes are highly consistent across different drawing types, since they're all generated and reviewed on a single spreadsheet.

Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement