Technically Thinking

AutoCAD Electrical User Group 1/22/2008

I first want to apologize for my voice as I have been recovering from a cold. I think there were a couple great tips that came out of todays user group and I wanted to capture them here before I forget.

Wild Cards

We are not talking Texas Hold em or any other poker here. AutoCAD Electrical has some built in wild cards for reporting that were brought to the surface today. For example performing a BOM report on everything except a certain location code, or a certain section of drawings. This is made easy with the following information: (Thanks Nate Holt for the info)

# (pound)	Matches any numeric digit
@ (at)	Matches any alphabetic character
. (period)	Matches any nonalphanumeric character
* (asterisk)	Matches any string and can be used anywhere in the search string
? (question  mark)	Matches any single character; for example, ?BC matches ABC, 3BC, and so on
~ (tilde)	Matches anything but the pattern; for example; ~*AB*matches all strings that don't contain AB
[ ]	Matches any one of the characters enclosed; for example, [AB]C matches AC and BC
[~]	Matches any character not enclosed; for example, [~AB]C matches XC but not AC
[-]	Specifies a range for a single character; for example, [A-G]C matches AC, BC, and so on to GC, but not HC
` (reverse quote)	Reads the next character literally; for example, `~AB matches ~AB

Places we know this can be used from today's conversations is Locatioin Codes, Installation Codes, and section / Sub Section filtering in the project wide commands.

I hope this helps, and thanks again to Nate Holt for this info.

Drawing Index Creation.....

Over the years I have done my fair share of demonstrations / training with clients on AutoCAD Electrical.  On my drive to work this morning i was thinking about what i can post today in order to try to start off the new year with some activity on my site. Today I will talk quickly about Drawing Index pages using AutoCAD Electrical.

This can be an easily overlooked topic in AutoCAD Electrical considering most people would think it would be a report that they would run, and they don't find it there. Don't worry, it can be done. With the project and drawing active that you wish to first do the drawing index of, and place it on. You will then right click on the project file and click on "Drawing List Report". Follow the steps below and adjust where needed to fit your specific needs.

• Click on New Report
• Select the drawings to process, then click OK
• Modify the report format as needed.
• Place on the drawing.

Wow, that is much easier than manually creating the list.

I hope everyone is having a great start to the new year.