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Brn_The_Admin12-Amethyst
12-Amethyst
May 23, 2025
Solved

Mass Import of Existing Engineering PDF's

  • May 23, 2025
  • 3 replies
  • 1083 views

Version: Windchill 12.1

 

Use Case: My company is trying to move as much information from network drives to Windchill as possible. The biggest move would be ~14k PDF drawings. I am struggling to think of a way to get them all uploaded and accessable.


Description:

The PDF's I've uploaded so far have been just normal documents, however, these are pretty much completely unusable. Whenever you try to download the "primary file" it just gives you a document filled with XML, and not everyone has Creo View. Which even if they did, publishing ~14k viewables seems like a tall ask for the Windchill+ job scheduler. 

 

Any ideas? Or has anyone attempted a similar move?

Best answer by Brn_The_Admin

@d_graham @Fadel @avillanueva 

 

Thanks for help and suggestions. I ended upwriting a powershell script that split all the pdfs into batchs of 1000 and tried to upload them through the Import/Export Management in utilities but still had no luck. It was recognizing the csv and xml file had in each batch but was saying it was incorrect. 

 

I was able to get everything loaded in through New > Upload Documents from Compressed File. It did take ~15 minutes per batch of 1000 but I was able to get them all in. 

3 replies

D
18-Opal
d_graham18-Opal
18-Opal
May 25, 2025

You want them uploaded to what?

For now I’ll assume you want them uploaded as primary content to new WTDocuments.

 

The Doc number and name can be set to the pdf filename (less .pdf).

 

A class can be written to read the pdf filenames, create the corresponding WTDoc and add the pdf as the primary.

 

It’s also possible to create the WTDoc in a folder path that mirrors the folder path of the pdf.

 

Don’t really know exactly what you’re after.

Maybe you can post a precise spec.

B
Brn_The_Admin12-AmethystAuthor
12-Amethyst
May 27, 2025

Yes, we are wanting to upload them to Windchill.

 

The main goal is to use a library inside of Windchill as a location for all this legacy data. New PDFs are automatically attached to the parts.

Fadel
Fadel23-Emerald I
23-Emerald I
May 27, 2025

take a look at https://www.ptc.com/en/support/article/cs38296 

Buiꓘa
avillanueva
23-Emerald I
avillanueva23-Emerald I
23-Emerald I
May 27, 2025

@Fadel has the right answer for uploading documents but you mentioned Windchill+. Are you using that version? The linked solution involves import via CSV2XML method were files are accessible by the server locally. Yes, you can do what you asked but not file management is not the same as document management. You might need to provide more details other than filename and location to create them. As @d_graham mentioned, you have to decide on numbering as well, name, etc. Documents can also have multiple attachments so there may be a opportunity to combine files into a single document if they are related such as a PDF and Word file. 

For Windchill+, you would want to include this article: https://www.ptc.com/en/support/article/CS431027?source=search

 

Your last comment on viewing and seeing just the text of the PDF (XML) in Creo View is a different issue. You should be able to publish representations and thumbnails of documents as well as view normally in Creo View. I suspect some other issues is going on there. 

Fadel
Fadel23-Emerald I
23-Emerald I
May 27, 2025

You are right I missed that part with WC+

Buiꓘa
B
Brn_The_Admin12-AmethystAuthorAnswer
12-Amethyst
June 4, 2025

@d_graham @Fadel @avillanueva 

 

Thanks for help and suggestions. I ended upwriting a powershell script that split all the pdfs into batchs of 1000 and tried to upload them through the Import/Export Management in utilities but still had no luck. It was recognizing the csv and xml file had in each batch but was saying it was incorrect. 

 

I was able to get everything loaded in through New > Upload Documents from Compressed File. It did take ~15 minutes per batch of 1000 but I was able to get them all in. 

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