Managing Projects Inside of AutoCAD Electrical

To take advantage of many of the features of AutoCAD Electrical you MUST be using project files. What are a few of these "features"? Well, any drawing to drawing relationships such as, source and destination arrows, parent-child relationships, and the Automatic Title Block Update cannot function without a project file. Basically anything that involves multiple drawings interacting together.

The project file is simply a text file that uses a .wdp extension. The name of the file is the actual project name. This text file stores the project properties, project descriptions, drawing descriptions, as well as a list of its drawings and their locations.

In release 2013 the project file also stores the subfolders created under the project.

The project file is typically stored in the same folder as the project drawings. However it is not necessary for all drawings to live inside this folder. If a drawing doesn't live inside the project folder, the project file will store the relative path from the project file to the drawing.

Presetting The Surfer's Zoom Distance in AutoCAD Electrical

The Surfer's zoom distance is typically perfect in the schematic. However when moving into panels it tends to zoom in much to far. If you have a panel template, this is something that can be set there as well.

Simply open your panel template and place a sample panel footprint. Then surf to it. Use the Zoom In/Out buttons as needed and then press Zoom Save. Delete the footprint and purge it from your template. That's it! Save this over your existing panel template. If you want to know where this setting is stored, press the 'Read More' link.

Blog News

Sorry for the lack of posts over the past week or so. I have been in the Autodesk Inventor world... I do have some Inventor Cable and Harness posts planned. And now this week I have moved into the world of AutoCAD Plant 3D. I sure wish some of Plant's features would make their way over to the Electrical side! Plant 3D is a very slick software package.

As for this blog, I have been opening many of the past posts and reposting them under their proper categories. For example: Creating a custom PLC style in AutoCAD Electrical was NOT listed under PLC. My categories have kind of evolved into what they are now and I plan on sticking with this latest set. I'm sure a few new ones will be added in time.