Applying updated templates to old documents
Posted: Sun Sep 15, 2024 6:45 am
I have completely reworked my templates for parts, documents and drawings, and I still have like 5 ongoing projects with ~400 documents in total that were created with the old templates. I am looking for a way to retroactively apply the changes I made in the new template to these old documents.
Changes I made are:
Document Properties (lots of stuff, several dozen changes)
Hide/Show Types (visibility of sketch relations, dimension names, etc.)
Annotation visibility
Turned off "suppress features" in default configuration in parts and "suppress new components" in assemblies
Selected "Configuration name" in default configuration (BOM Options)
Tree Display -> Show Component Name and Description in assemblies
Adjusted scene parameters
Added Bounding Box
Added several default Custom Properties
I found this tool to copy Document Properties from one document to another, but as you can see from my list, Document Properties are just a small part of the changes I made.
I think most of these changes should be doable with API (macro), but unfortunately macro recorder doesn't capture most of these changes, so writing it manually would be a lot of work.
I think it would be simpler if I could just re-create these documents from the new templates, and then copy over the content (Feature Manager Tree) from the old documents. This is actually very simple with assemblies - just create a new assembly from the old one, and then dissolve the old one. But with parts, I don't see an easy way - simple CTRL+C only works for simple features, not entire model history. Or maybe there is some way? As for drawings, I only have a few, so I can re-create them manually.
A few things that might make this easier if going by this second approach - I don't need to transfer material, since I reworked my material library anyway and will need to re-apply new materials. Same for Custom Properties, it would be easier to re-write them than try and convert old ones.
I am sure this is a common issue, but I haven't been able to find much useful info aside from that old tool. Can anyone share any tips and tricks to make this transition easier?
Changes I made are:
Document Properties (lots of stuff, several dozen changes)
Hide/Show Types (visibility of sketch relations, dimension names, etc.)
Annotation visibility
Turned off "suppress features" in default configuration in parts and "suppress new components" in assemblies
Selected "Configuration name" in default configuration (BOM Options)
Tree Display -> Show Component Name and Description in assemblies
Adjusted scene parameters
Added Bounding Box
Added several default Custom Properties
I found this tool to copy Document Properties from one document to another, but as you can see from my list, Document Properties are just a small part of the changes I made.
I think most of these changes should be doable with API (macro), but unfortunately macro recorder doesn't capture most of these changes, so writing it manually would be a lot of work.
I think it would be simpler if I could just re-create these documents from the new templates, and then copy over the content (Feature Manager Tree) from the old documents. This is actually very simple with assemblies - just create a new assembly from the old one, and then dissolve the old one. But with parts, I don't see an easy way - simple CTRL+C only works for simple features, not entire model history. Or maybe there is some way? As for drawings, I only have a few, so I can re-create them manually.
A few things that might make this easier if going by this second approach - I don't need to transfer material, since I reworked my material library anyway and will need to re-apply new materials. Same for Custom Properties, it would be easier to re-write them than try and convert old ones.
I am sure this is a common issue, but I haven't been able to find much useful info aside from that old tool. Can anyone share any tips and tricks to make this transition easier?