Drawing sheets

Drawing sheet overview

Drawing composition begins with choosing a drawing sheet. Drawing sheets are similar to pages in a notebook. You can place drawing views on different drawing sheets in the document. For example, you can place a front view and a right view on one drawing sheet and a section view on another drawing sheet. Both sheets are saved in the same document. To set up a drawing sheet, use the Sheet Setup command on the Application menu.

All 3D model drawing views, dimensions, and annotations are placed on the active working sheet, which has two components.

You also can draw, dimension, and annotate geometry on the 2D Model sheet, and then create 2D model views of the 2D design and place them on the active working sheet.

Working sheets

The sheet where you place part views of the model and do all of your drawing view construction is called a working sheet. You can create as many working sheets as you need. Each working sheet has a background sheet attached to it.

Use the View tab→Sheet Views→Working command to show and hide all working sheets.

You can modify the characteristics of a drawing sheet, such as sheet size and which background sheet is attached, using the Sheet Setup command on the Application menu. You can use the Save Defaults button in the Sheet Setup dialog box to save your settings as the default for all new working sheets created in the document.

Background sheets

A background sheet is used as a backdrop to the working sheet. You can attach the same background sheet to any number of working sheets, making them useful for any geometry that you want to place on more than one drawing.

When you attach a background sheet to a working sheet with the Sheet Setup command, geometry on the background sheet is displayed and printed along with the working sheet. So that the paper sizes and graphics on both sheets line up, the size of the working sheet is automatically set to the size of the background sheet you attach. A typical customized scheme would be to have a different background sheet for each standard-sized drawing (such as A, B, C, D, or A0, A1, A2, A3, A4).

Note:

The graphics on the background sheet are not affected by drawing sheet scale. They are always displayed 1:1 with respect to the working sheet.

For example, on the background sheet you can add a company-standard border and title block, insert a raster image of your company logo with the Insert Object command, or draw other geometry that you want to show in the background.

Table sheets

Table sheets are working sheets that are inserted automatically in the sheet tab tray to contain multi-page parts lists and tables. Table sheet tab names show the table group number and the table sheet number within the group, for example, Table1:1. When multiple sheets are inserted for the same table, the second sheet tab name is Table1:2.

Table sheets can be used to organize long parts lists and tables into booklets for easier printing. You can specify that table sheets are created for a new table or parts list when you select the Create new sheets for table option on the Location tab in the Properties dialog box.

You can use the Show sheet backgrounds option on the Location tab to control what is displayed on the table sheets when they are generated. They can be blank sheets, or you can display a table sheet template with a defined border and title block.

Example:

To create a table sheet template, you can:

Step 1.

Design a parts list title block that is sized for A Tall (8.5 x 11 inch) paper.

Step 2.

Place it on a working sheet, and then use the Background tab in the Sheet Setup dialog box to associate a background sheet with the template.

Step 3.

Create a template that includes the background sheet and save it to the C:\Program Files\Solid Edge ST6\Template\More folder.

To learn how to use table sheets when creating parts lists and tables, see Create new sheets for tables.

You can use options on the View tab, Solid Edge Options dialog box (Draft) to specify how the table sheets are named and arranged in the sheet tab tray. For example, you can use the Number sheet groups separately option to keep table sheets together in sheet tab tray.

For more information, see Sheet names and numbers, below.

2D model sheet

The 2D Model sheet is a special sheet used exclusively for working in 2D model space. It enables you to draw on the sheet and annotate at a scale appropriate for the overall size of the part you are designing, yet it prints your drawing with annotations appropriately scaled to the output sheet size you specify.

For example, you can drag a file containing 2D geometry--such as a Solid Edge .dft document or an AutoCAD .dwg or .dxf file--onto the 2D Model sheet. You can add annotations and dimensions using one drawing scale, then use the 2D Model command in the Drawing Views group to create 2D views of your design that you place on one or more working sheets at a different scale for printing.

Unlike working sheets, there is just one 2D Model sheet allowed per document. It is always the first sheet in the document, and it cannot be renamed.

Manipulating sheets

You can use the sheet tabs located at the bottom of the drawing window in the following ways:

You can use the following scroll buttons to scroll through the drawing sheet tabs.

Scrolls to the first drawing sheet tab in the document.

Scrolls to the last drawing sheet tab in the document.

Scrolls to the previous drawing sheet tab in the document. To scroll through several tabs at a time, hold Shift, then click this button.

Scrolls to the next drawing sheet tab in the document. To scroll through several tabs at a time, hold Shift, then click this button.

Sheet tab groups

Sheet groups collect similar types of sheets-such as working sheets, background sheets, and table sheets--into groups in the sheet tab tray. Sheet tab groups are displayed in alternating color groups in the sheet tab tray. This makes it easy to find individual sheets and to print related sheets. For example, parts lists that span multiple drawing sheets are grouped in the drawing sheet tab tray to facilitate printing as a booklet.

You can change the default colors assigned to the sheet tabs using the following options on the Colors tab (Solid Edge Options dialog box):

Sheet names and numbers

Each sheet group has its own naming convention. Although you cannot specify how names are assigned initially, you can rename individual sheets using the Rename Sheet command on the sheet tab shortcut menu. Two sheets can have the same name if they are located in different groups.

You can use the following options on the View tab, Solid Edge Options dialog box (Draft) to specify how the sheets are named and arranged in the sheet tab tray.

You can create property text that references the sheet tab name or number and display it in a callout. The help topic, Property Text source list (Source: From Active Document), describes the property text that you can reference in the document.

Sheets and document templates

You can reuse your customized background sheets by saving them in a document template. When you use the template to create a new document, all of the background sheets in the template are copied into the new document.

Displaying drawing sheets in Draft viewers

When you want to make your Draft documents available for review in Solid Edge Viewer and View and Markup, you must specify the sheets to be included in the file. Use the following check boxes on the General page (Solid Edge Options dialog box, Draft environment), to select the sheet types:

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