Allow control of text wrap in table cells

[dhermosillo]

Currently, if a parameter is reported in a table cell, there is no way to control how it wraps except by the borders of the cell.  This is problematic for tables, such as title blocks, where the title is reported but due to the size of the cell, the parameter is broken up so it wraps weirdly.

PTC please allow control of the text wrap in table cells separate from the size of the cell itself.

[mender]

Could you show a picture of the case in question?  I'm trying to picture it, and ending up with the text going through a cell border, which I'm pretty sure you don't want.

[dhermosillo]

I added an image to the idea above.  Thanks for the suggestion.  🙂

[mender]

Ah, so less about word wrap, more about specifying line breaks.  Pending any enhancement, the a workflow to make such a thing is param TITLE_PART_1 = "TITLE OF A DRAWING,", TITLE_PART_2 = "SEPARATED BY COMMAS,", etc. with the title block note calling out each on its own line.  You could even have a relation that takes the full string and chops it up into lines.

Alternatively, you could use a note-valued parameter, which handles the note lines nicely, though does not allow for relations with string operations (being not a string).

[BenLoosli]

We use the multiple parameter method for our 3 lines of the drawing title.

Putting in a control character in a text string to force a new line where the user desires is a nice idea. The limitation is when you export that parameter it has characters in it that will make the line look strange.

Another CAD system I used in the past had the options for cells to 1) expand to fit text, 2) break text into multiple lines or 3) Change the text height so the string would fit in the cell. These were defined as part of the cell definition.

[BobSchwerdlin]

OK, how about this one...

In the description field of the rev block on our drawing formats, sometimes the engineer may enter something relatively short and sweet, like: M5 SCREWS WERE M4.  And that doesn't pose any problems in the description field of the rev block on the drawing.  But there are times when you may have several items that need to be listed on the rev block, like: M5 SCREWS WERE M4,  ø.750 HOLE WAS ø.712,  ADDED SENSOR ON LOWER TOOLING FIXTURE,  REMOVED ITEM #7.  Having this many things in the rev block is difficult to cram in there without some messing around with cell formatting and text sizes etc.

It would be nice to have the formatting of a cell with word wrap turned on to automatically adjust in height (or width - user defined), so shorter notes in a cell only fill one cell, but larger notes automatically adjust either the height, width, or both to accommodate the text contents.

[mender]

I think we already that?  I just tried File>New>Drawing, Table>Insert, put a long note in a cell, told it to word wrap, and the row height got taller.  Creo 2 M220, though I'm reasonably sure the behavior has been around forever-ish.  There are some versioning checks in the vicinity, so you may wish to check with the detail setup command 'update_drawing all'.  If that makes it work right, and your drawing was not exceedingly old, check that your drawing creation process involves File>New (either straight, or via template), and not, say, copying a start drawing on disk.  If you do need to copy a start drawing on disk to make new drawings, use 'update_drawing all' just after to tell the drawing not to use the long-since-fixed old behaviors.

[dhermosillo]

Thanks for the suggestions.  I appreciate everyone's willingness to solve the issue.  Unfortunately, or fortunately, we are at a size now where CAD does not exist as an island and changes to the data has consequences.

We can't use the multiple line workaround because the Title is used in multiple downstream systems, such as purchasing and inventory.

The resize workaround is doable, but from a CAD standards point of view really irks me.

Essentially, the data works fine the way it is, and is not changeable without a significant impact to other enterprise systems. The only problem is with the display on the drawing.

Honestly, as long as PTC has been in the CAD business, this should have been figured out years ago.  Data is not CAD-centric anymore and PTC should realize this since they produce Windchill as well.  If PTC would enable their tools to work with each other, it would give CAD users the ability to display data correctly while enabling the data we create to be used efficiently throughout the company.

[BenLoosli]

One work around is to use multiple title lines in your CAD file.

TITLE_FULL is the full title: TITLE OF A DRAWING, SEPARATED BY COMMAS, DENOTING DIFFERENT THINGS

Then you can create 3 sub-title lines for your drawing.

TITLE_1 is: TITLE OF A DRAWING,

TITLE_2 is: SEPARATED BY COMMAS,

TITLE_3 is: DENOTING DIFFERENT THINGS

If you want to automate that you can use relations and substring command to look for the commas and create the 3 lines from the main one.

[mender]

To clarify, in proposing the workarounds, people aren't saying this proposal is without value.  The best approach currently is to have the title as desired in one parameter, and use a relation to chop it up in the desired manner for presentation in the drawing, as Ben and I suggested.  But it's true that a callout that in itself says that it should get line breaks after each comma (or some other character?  Possibly removing the delimiter, possibly not?  Possibly removing any subsequent whitespace so middle alignment will work ideally?) would be less work for the user (and may allow for some results not otherwise achievable).  Enough users making enough drawings who would save enough total time and then vote for the idea can justify its development.

For now, do consider putting the title-chopping relation in your start/template part, as any enhancement is in the future.  For reference, the relevant functions are search(string,",") to find the comma, and extract(string, position, length) to pull out substrings to the _1, _2, etc. parameters.

[dhermosillo]

Thanks!  I'll see if our CAD dept can make this happen.  🙂

[olivierlp]

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