- [Man] Anytime you start a part, an assembly,
or a drawing inside of SolidWorks, it uses a template.
Let me show you how it works.
If I head up here and click on new,
notice over here I've got the novice window here
which will allow me to choose a part, an assembly,
or a drawing, which just uses the default template.
But if you click over here on under advanced,
you can see here, I've got a bunch of different templates
that I can use.
So right over here, I've got a millimeter gram template
that uses a 10 20 material.
I've got the 10 60 aluminum.
I've got a LinkedIn part template.
I've got this LinkedIn assembly template
as well as a LinkedIn drawing.
I also have other locations that I can browse to and find
the templates that are in the those folders as well,
and in fact, we can even add new tabs up here
to find different locations where we can find our templates.
Now, in this example, I'm going to click
on this LinkedIn drawing template, click on okay,
and that's going to open up that template.
Now we can make as many templates as we'd like
and it's a good idea to make different templates
for different styles of drawings.
For one example, you might want to use a template
that's set up for the inch system.
You might have another one that's set
up for the metric system.
You might have one set up for your specific company
or if you work for multiple companies or multiple divisions
you might have specific templates for each one of those.
When you get over here to your template itself
we can actually modify this existing drawing
and turn it into a new template.
To do that, let's go ahead and just click on okay
here first.
We're not going to actually add model view
'cause we just want to modify the template itself
and then right click anywhere on the sheet.
And I can come up here and click on edit sheet format.
As soon as you do that, notice that all the icons
and the wording you saw there will switch over
to this kind of cryptic language here,
which is pulling in data from your individual part
or assembly or even the sheet format.
And it's going to pull it in.
So right here it's going to say $PRPSHEET description.
So it's going to go and grab the description
of the part and bring it into this drawing.
Same thing with the revision down here.
And these are overlapping a little bit
but that's just because they're long
but when they actually finally get the revision
it's just going to be one letter.
Okay.
Now, if you want to start modifying this template,
a quick way to do that is to start with your logo.
Now right here, I just have a text your logo
but I actually want to put a logo there.
So let's go ahead and just move that out of the way
and now let's go ahead and grab a picture
to put in there.
So let's head over here to the sketch toolbar
and I don't have the sketch picture icon here.
So I want to add that in.
So I'm going to right click on any one of these
little tabs here and come down here to customize.
Inside of there, you can find all the individual tools
and the different commands.
So under commands, right over here, I'm going to come down
to sketch and here are all the available tools
in the sketch toolbar.
And SolidWorks is a configurable environment.
So I can change and modify which tools are available
in the ribbon bars.
And I do have a tool right over here called sketch picture.
Let's go ahead and just drag that and snap that into
my sketch ribbon bar and then click on okay.
Once we have it, click on the sketch picture.
And then notice we are in chapter 15,
so let's go ahead and take a look at chapter 15
and the first folder there.
I have a PNG logo and that's what I want to use.
And notice down here under pictures, I have the option
of using any one of these styles of pictures.
So let's go ahead and choose this PNG one.
Click okay.
And that's going to bring that logo into my drawing.
However, it's a little bit big.
So let's go ahead and just scale that down.
Bring it down a little smaller.
Let's move that over here.
And then notice over here under transparency.
Now a PNG file actually has a transparent background.
So if I switch over here from file,
notice the background goes away.
I could also choose the full image or user to find
but if you're using a PNG file,
it's a great way to just knock out the background
and have it transparent behind the image.
Let's go ahead and just scale that down a little bit more
and see if we can fit that inside the box.
So here it is.
All right, so once you've got it looking fairly good,
let's zoom in here a little bit more.
Let's center it up, bring it down just a little bit more
and that's pretty good.
Okay so, it doesn't have to be perfect.
We're just giving you an example
of how you could bring in a logo.
We could also bring in blocks like DWG or DXF files
by using the blocks toolbar to bring those in
or even individual sketches.
Doesn't really matter.
You can bring all kinds of different images in
or other graphics files to use in your sheets.
Same thing over here, I can come down
and just edit this text information here.
After you've accepted the picture
you can come in here and modify this text to match
whatever you have for your company.
You can change the font.
You can change the size.
You can change anything you want.
Same thing at any of these blocks over here, we can go in
and modify all that information, and we can hard type in
things like your manufacturing approval or your QA person,
and put their name here, or you can link to something else.
Now these links are a little bit more complicated to add
but they're pretty straightforward.
So if I click over here under annotation, I can come
over here under note, click over here to add a note.
Now, instead of typing something out
I can come over here and click on this insert hyperlink
which will actually take me to a website
or I can come over here and click on link to property.
If I do that, I can link to either the current document
or the model found here.
So I can find the model inside there.
I can say selected component or the drawing.
So a couple different options how you can do that.
Once you've selected one of these, then I can come down here
and choose one of those linked properties.
And if you add something in here that doesn't actually
have anything then it won't show up.
So something like created date or last save by
these are pretty good things to have.
So let's say create a date, put that in there
and notice it automatically propagates over here.
And when you click okay, there you have that note.
So here's our latest created date
and it will automatically update as you go through
your design process of when you created that file.
Anytime you use that template,
it'll always bring that date into your file.
So once you have made the modifications you want,
let's go ahead and just get rid of this logo.
Then exit out of the edit sheet format.
And now we want to go over and save this as a template,
'cause right now this is just a regular drawing.
So I want to go up here to file, come down here to save as.
Okay, and instead of a regular drawing,
I want to come down and click it and save it
as a drawing template.
The drawing template.
And right now it's using the default file location
but I want to go over here to the desktop
come over to exercise files, come all the way down
to chapter 15, and right in there is where
I'm going to put this drawing template.
And I already have one example in here
but I'm going to go ahead and just overwrite
that drawing template.
So my new drawing template's going to be called draw one
and you can of course name it anything you want.
And it is a drawing template.
Click on save and replace the existing file.
Everything looks good.
We can also under that same thing is
save sheet format, right?
At the same time we can do the same thing here.
And we're going to put that one under the same exact folder,
exercise files chapter 15.
Now I'm putting these in this folder here.
So here's my little template that I'm calling it out
and I could call this whatever I want.
I'm going to put dash two at the end.
Just save that out.
'Cause that's what's being used in this template.
Okay, now, because I'm saving that to that one folder
that folder's not in our file system
that SolidWorks is looking at.
So the better place to save those type of templates
would be in the company shared folder under templates
or some location that would make sense
for your whole company to use it.
So if you're making a nice template, it'd be great
if everybody else who's in your company
can use the same template
or you're controlling those templates,
so only specific people who are CAD managers can modify them
and then saving those in some kind of central location.
You can save them anywhere you want.
In this case, I have it in my exercise files folder,
but again, that's not the best place.
But I'm giving you an example of how we can use that.
But if we do want to use that folder
let me show you how to create that path.
So once I've created the path this is now a template.
Come over here to the options at the top of the screen.
Come over here under system options
and come down here to file locations.
So here are my document templates and there's a whole bunch
of things in here, but my document templates,
these are the different file locations that I have.
If you want to add a new one, just click on add.
And the location I'm looking for or is exercise files
chapter 15, 15_01.
And that is exactly where we're at right now.
Notice you can't see anything here because we're just
choosing a folder.
Select the folder, notice it adds it over here,
then click on okay.
Now SolidWorks is asking is if we'd like to make
this change to our path.
And you say yes.
And it might ask you for an elevation request,
say yes to that a couple times.
And now we've added that path.
So check this out.
If I go up here and say new, guess what?
Right here at the bottom, I have a new tab.
And inside of that new tab is my new drawing.
Click on that.
And now I start a brand new drawing
using that template that we already created.
That's how you can quickly create a template
and then actually use it.
And then anytime you want to use that template
you of course just go to that tab
find it and you should be all set.