This may seem like an ignorant question but I don't have access to the latest ASME drafting standard, so here goes:

Where should the general drawing notes be placed? I have always placed them in the upper left-hand corner of my drawings but our new company Quality folks say the notes should be in the lower left-hand area.

Which is correct?

Thanks

This standard can get you started.
Drawing standard

Chris
SolidWorks 11
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion

Thanks,
According to that standard, the preferred placement is where I have been placing them, in the upper left-hand corner. Do you know if the latest ASME standard indicates the same?

To the best of my knowledge there is no specific requirement.
If there was any, you’d find it in ASME Y14.100.
Upper-left corner looks like more common practice to me.

Yeah, as far as I see there is nothing in Y14.100 defining the only correct location of drawing notes.

Apparently, there are 2 arguments to this:
It is easier to add notes to those that are in the upper left-hand area.
There is more room for drawing views if the notes are in lower left area.
My Drawing Requirements Manual (ninth edition) shows notes in the upper left-hand area. This complies with MIL-T-31000 and MIL-STD-100, I believe but this book is certainly not the latest.

ASME Y14.100 only says first sheet of drawing - no location given that I'm aware of.

We had this argument and in our own DRM specify top left.

Usually if the notes are placed in the lower-left corner, they are numbers from bottom to top to facilitate adding/editing entries, at least that is what I've seen. I agree that top-left is more common.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."

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Sadly, we must do lower left with top to bottom numbers - the worst case scenario. Obviously, the people making these decisions do not have to create drawings, themselves. Isn't that always the way?

Thanks for all the responses, everyone. I had a feeling I'd see replies such as those listed but a reality check was in order.

Unless you are still using paper-and-pencil, does it really matter? CAD affords us the luxury of moving notes, views, dimensions, etc. without leaving eraser marks or having to redraw entire sections just because something moved.

OMG look at the time! It's 12 after the 21st Century, already.

Depends Tick,

There are some deficiencies in the CAD we use that can make moving the notes a bit more painful than you might like to think.

Also, CAD cell phone companies are going to great lengths to eliminate clicks, so why force additional clicks by placing notes in an inconvenient location?

I suggest have a meeting with the department heads and come up with a standard that fits your company, not what fits a quality person's wants.

Chris
SolidWorks 11
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion

I agree with ctopher.

Quality departments as a whole have a difficult time changing when it comes to anything that they are not used to. I often get the "This is the way we have always done it" answer when I ask many of the quality people about making some of the smallest changes. The company I am at right now is converting from AutoCAD 2D to SW and the quality department is having a fit because they are having a hard time understanding subassemblies/indented BOMs. They are pushing back and have almost forced flat BOMs and a single assembly for some very intricate systems. We are working on a year long plan to roll them out with lots of training, which will help, but it is a very touchy subject here. Hopefully you have the critical mass where you work to drive the change instead of being forced to stick with the status quo.

Good luck!

Boottmills

Mouse clicks? Really? Mouse clicks are SOOOOOOOO hard!

Where did I go wrong in my career? If too many clicks was a problem for me, it would mean all the real problems in my job were gone.

I'll often have 2 or 3 or 4 pages of notes for a project. I set them up using a 1:1 scale fitting on a small D sheet, with an equivalent width of 6 columns per D sheet. For a project, there may be 20 columns. These are then brought into Paper Space with the viewports taking 6 columns each. If there were 20 columns in model space, then there would be 4 sheets in paperspace.

Viewports are easy... only problem occurs when the client doesn't want paperspace used.

Dik

Notes that are difficult to move; I wish I had that kind of job security. I’d be the most careful and precise note-mover around.

And to dik: this is the wrong forum, but as ACAD user of 17 years let me tell you: if you create your notes in model-space you are doing it wrong. Please don’t tell that you scale your title blocks as well…

In my case, a prototype drafting manual was circulated and I redlined quite a few old school and/or inaccurate stuff. Unfortunately, whoever had final say decided that the notes should be in the lower left with note 1 at the top. I'd have to guess that the corporated director of engineering made the ultimate decision. Hysterically, the document states that the latest ASME standards apply, yet examples in the document deviate from the standard, showing a "preferred" view nexet to the ASME standard view.
I did work for one company in which the engineering manager decided after 7 years of our using an excellent 3D CAD program that we would switch to one that is "more popular" with the thought that all other companies with whom we dealt on a regular basis would use the same program and version. Boy, was he wrong. Again, it was the people who designed who suffered, as we had hundreds of models and drawings that we couldn't use if making a slight redesign.

concept2 - wow, I've worked at your last place where some 'manager' decided to change to a 'more popular 3D CAD program' with no other justification twice. The second time it bogged down before going too far fortunately.

As to moving notes, while it may not take much time it does introduce a little extra work and potential for errors. So while I don't lose sleep over it, if you're trying to be hardcore 'lean' or some such then it seems a bit silly.

Sorry Checkerhater... but I don't use AutoCAD (use Bricscad)and I'm not a draftsman... and the original query was not in the AutoCAD forum. The response was a general drafting one.

I start at the left... and fill 'er up...

Dik

KENAT,

It's not so much about mouse clicks (which I feel is important), but also a whole host of other people involved. I've seen complaints from up and down the supply stream, and from engineers that get annoyed when notes (and other elements like dimensions) are moved around when a drawing is revised. The argument is that it makes it harder to determine/confirm what changed between revisions.

Matt Lorono, CSWP
Product Definition Specialist, DS SolidWorks Corp
Personal sites:
Lorono's SolidWorks Resources & SolidWorks Legion

Seems like company preference is the bottom line. The places I have been at recently like to put the notes in the upper right, sufficiently below the Revision Block, in order to make more room for drawing space. This works good for detail part drawings.
For assemblies, is is better to have them decending from the upper left of the sheet, since assembly notes tend to be much larger.

It has most likely been left flexible to accommodate the required available drawing view areas. I find the lower left is often a dead area calling for some kind of use, due to the title block’s location on the lower right. I actually prefer the upper right like all who are conditioned to read from left to right and down from up.

I prefer the upper-right (more or less) also, so that they are mostly visible if a hard-copy of the drawing gets folded.