4 replies to this topic

[Kerry Calvert]

For years I have used template drawings that I have created for various different drawing scales now I'm trying to figure out how to convert them to Drawing Templates within Softplan.

 

These are DRAWINGS that I use as templates, not PROJECTS.

 

I do not want to convert whole projects to these templates I only want to convert individual drawings within the projects.  For example my floor plans, elevations, and most sections are at 3/16" but my details could be 1/4", 5/16", 3/8", 1/2", 5/8", 3/4", etc.

 

So I have some questions:

1.) How do I create Softplan Drawing Templates out of my existing drawings?

2.) How do I use the new templates for new DRAWINGS?
3.) How do I use the new templates to convert existing drawings?

 

[Jon Davis]

The only way really to convert existing drawings is to open them and edit the project options for each one so that they match what you want going forward.

 

Going forward, you can open softplan, go to system settings, and set up everything the way you want it... 

 

Then every time you "create a new project" it will have all of the settings that you want. You don't really need to create a template project file, however you may want to for certain types of drawings. I have a template folder set up that has drawing files in it that I can copy into new project folders. I have one called "Detail -"  so if I need to draw a larger scaled detail I can save that as Detail - Cornice or whatever the case may be.  There's nothing drawn in it, but it's already set so that the text is smaller and the pointers are smaller so they show correctly at a larger scale than the rest of the project. You can save that setting as well as a template within the project options dialog. So when you create a new drawing within a project, you can go to project options, and change the type from default to "Details" and it will automatically pull in your settings you saved. So in reality I don't technically have to have that "Detail -" file to copy into folders. 

[Kerry Calvert]

Hi Jon,

 

Ok I have been working on trying to figure out Drawing Templates for the last 8 hours and this is what I found.

 

You can take an existing drawing in an existing project and change the drawing scale (providing of course that is what your templates are for).  You can jump around in the various different scales to your hearts content and your drawing will scale up and down accordingly HOWEVER your layers & building options better match in all of the templates as well as your original if they don't then oh boy do you have a lot of work ahead of you to clean up the drawing.

 

I suggest creating a new blank drawing, setting it up with the scale template you want to use then merging the original drawing onto it.  You can do this as many times as you like to look at the different scales just BACKSPACE/delete each attempt that you don't want to use. With this there would only be a little cleanup required.

 

For now it seems to work quite slick!!

[Jon Davis]

Yes I've done something similar as well. If I have an old project, that's not set up with the same settings I use now, but I want to create a new project based off that one, I create a new project from SP, create a "main floor" drawing, and then insert the main floor from the older project. Since your inserting just the objects from the old project, they will all update once inserted to the current project settings.

[Dave Pazyniak]

be careful.  wall styles will sometimes disappear or change into a different wall style without any notice or warning if it is not defined in all the templates.