Easily Change Verbage

Let's be real.  Almost every company I work with re-uses design data when it comes to controls engineering.  The things that change are typically part numbers because the end customer has their specific component brands that they carry as spare parts or that they just prefer to use.  Another thing that I have noticed that changes is verbage on symbols. For example one design for Customer X might have the main push button that starts the machine as "Master Start" Customer Y might have the same push button labeled "System Start" and Customer Z might have it labeled "Machine Start".  This is a very simple scenario because there is only one main start push button on the design.  But think about when you have 50 + pages of schematics and you have the word "Forward" and you now need it to read as "Advanced".  This text could show up 50 or 100 times.  A tedious task until AutoCAD Electrical.  Please read on below.

Step 1

Select the "Find/Edit/Replace Component Text" command from the "Retag Components" fly out toolbar located on the Main Electrical Toolbar.

Step 2

• Select either "Project" "Drawing" or "Active Drawing (Pick)".  This selection is used for what drawings / items will be processed in the find and replace.
• Note:  If you select project the next step would be to select the drawings from the project to include in the process. you can select one or all or any amount in between.

Step 3

Select the check marks by the items you wish to search for. Then give the "Find" string of text and the "Replace" string of text. Then click "Start Search".

Step 4

• Cycle through the results.  A dialog box is show with the first result found.  The user will see all of the attribute information for that component in the result dialog box.  Any item can be changed here before moving on.  The user has the option to "Skip to Next" "Replace" or "Replace All".

• In conclusion I feel that this command can save valuable time that can now be used on designing better products as opposed to doing those tedious tasks that we all despise doing.

Until next time

Rob

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