Using Fields With Drawings In Zwcad 2011

By Author: Walter Konrad
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Now you can fill templates, sheet sets, and custom fields with data from drawings that update automatically. ZWSOFT has added "field text" to the latest version of ZWCAD 2011 beta. When you use field data as part of a sheetset in a drawing, you can control nearly every aspect of how users create and manage drawings during the life cycle of a project. The command can be accessed by entering Field at the command prompt, or by selecting Insert Field from the Insert menu.

The Field command in ZWCAD can be used to extract and present data from drawing files as text fields. Fields can be embedded in mtext, tables, attribute definitions, and so on. For example, if you use text in your drawing over and over again -- such as the current date, the drafter's initials, and/or your company's name and address -- you can save time and improve accuracy by placing the data as fields with the Field command. You do not have to memorize or remember the information, because when the values are updated or changed, ZWCAD changes the text automatically, instantly.

At any stage of the drawing, you can change the properties ...
... of the drawing, such as text height and text style, through drawing properties that create the custom properties. If you cannot find the custom field content that comes with ZWCAD, you can add custom field through the Custom Tab of the Drawing Properties dialog box. These custom fields can then be used in other parts of the drawing through fields.

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In ZWCAD drawings, field text has a gray colored background. This is a visual indicator that the text is a field; the gray background can not be printed. Once a drawing is customized with fields, you can save it as a DWT template drawing, and then have it available for any other drawings based on that template.

Here is how to change text to fields: double click the text to edit it, and then from the formatting toolbar click on the Insert Field button. This brings up the Field dialog box, from which you can select the categories and options to add fields to the text.

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Similarly, you may use the AttDef command to create an attribute definitions made of fields. This can be done through the Default Text item of Attribute Definition dialog box.

Even when an attribute consists of a field, users can still override the field's automatic value. An example of this is the date in a drawing's title box. You can use a field, which always reports today's date; you might, however, decide to freeze it to a fixed date when necessary.

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