Dating Drawings

[R1100S]

Is there a way to get solidworks to automatically date drawings when printing or saving to PDF? It would be useful to know when drawings were last modified.

 

[ctopher]

The last modified date should be with the revision.
You can make a block with text. Have the text linked to current date. Add the block to the dwg face. Everytime you open the dwg the date will get updated.

Chris
Sr. Mechanical Designer, CAD
SolidWorks 05 SP2.0 / PDMWorks 05
ctopher's home site

FAQ559-1100
FAQ559-716

 

[Standing]

Put $PRP:”SW-Short Date” on the template. This date will change to current date. Do not put this in title block. The drafters date and engineers date should not change.

Bradley

 

[smcadman]

As Bradley stated, it would not be a good idea to put it in the title block because every time you open it, the date will change. Originally we used $PRP:"SW-Short Date" for the date, but then if we opened an old drawing, the date would change to the current date. Instead we now use a custom property called "modeled date" that we put in the title block.
On somewhat the same subject, we originally used $PRPSHEET:"SW-Last Saved By" for the engineer, but that field would change everytime someone saved the drawing, and we had trouble finding out who originally did the drawings, so now we use the Author property.

Flores

 

[R1100S]

Thank you,

I love this board.

 

[sloth4z]

I manually put in the created date, and then use $PRP:"SW-Short Date" to show the last time the drawing was modified. I then save and print to pdf. I usually open the pdf file unless I plan on modifying the file again.

In SW2001+ there is a created date option $PRP:"SW-Created Date" but it puts it in long format (Monday, June 6, 2005, 2:03:28 PM). Does SW2005 have a short date option for the created date?

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

I use the models DrawnDate property. That returns the short date format & is static (does not update on opening the model or drawing). I also have the Windows Regional & Language Options > Regional Options > Customize > Date > Short date format set to yyyy-mm-dd ... but that's just personal preference.


Making the best use of this Forum. faq559-716
How to get answers to your SW questions. faq559-1091
Helpful SW websites every user should be aware of. faq559-520

 

[Heckdogg]

In the past, we have put the date in either the header or footer of the drawing template so it will automatically add the date the dwg was printed.

SolidWorks 2005 SP01.1
Intel Xeon 2.8GHz 2GB Ram
NVIDIA Quadro FX700 128MB

 

[TateJ]

If all you want is the date this hard-copy was printed...
Try addiing a FOOTER to your printer properties.
That's how I get mine to work.

Heckdogg is almost right You set this up in your printer properties - but then make sure you save it in your drawing template. Othwewise you have to do it ever time you print.

SolidWorks 2005 SP03.0 / Windows 2000 Professional

 

[Standing]

Don’t make the mistake I did. I set the font using text size instead of point. Something changed and for some reason our date came in huge when printed.

Bradley