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BeKirra
2016-07-11, 11:12 PM
I can create drawing templates for plain & mech versions without any issues.
However, I am new to AutoCAD Electrical. I now have 2016 version installed.
I am going to insert title block with company logo, pre-set layers, blocks etc. to the templates shipped from Autodesk.
I found there are lots of Autodesk templates (about 100 .dwt in the template folder) with the electrical version.
I can certainly be able to narrow down to couple of dwt as we are in mechanical industry and use metric unit.
For my 1st guess the following is what I am looking to:
1) Manufacturing Metric Sheet Set.dwt
2) ACAD_ELECTRICAL.dwt
3) ACAD_ELECTRICAL_IEC.dwt
4) acadISO -Named Plot Styles.dwt
5) acadISO -Named Plot Styles3D.dwt
6) acadiso.dwt
7) acadiso3D.dwt

Comparing to the mechanical templates, I am confused with these files and have no ideas for choosing them for our company templates.
Could you tell if I am wrong in choosing the templates above?
Thanks for your help in advance.

HinsonJ
2016-10-12, 02:55 AM
The template .dwt files are useless as an example template for electrical. Open the NFPADemo or other demo project as an example. AutoCAD Electrical maintains hidden data along with the title block that is used to display information such as drawing number, date etc. There are two main files that define the fields that map this data to the title block. The procedure is:
1. Insert fields into the .dwt file, use the same type of text object used in the demo file title block (exploded), I think they are attribute definitions
2. Select all the fields that were created and create a block “TitleBlock” (used below)
3. Create a txt file with the format %ProjectName%.wdt
4. Map the fields from the title block in this file (see example in demo)
5. Create a file %ProjectName%_WDTITLE.wdl (see example in demo)
6. Map the interface that will pop up in AutoCAD when entering text in each field.

Name this base project something like ACADE_Template, then use the “Copy” from the Project menu to create your new project using this one as the base. When creating a new drawing, make sure you point to the .dwt file in the dialog box and it will insert the title block along with populating the fields you enter from this dilog.

Here is an example of a .wdt mapping (you can also search for other .wdt files as an example):
BLOCK = TITLEBLOCK
SHEET`# = DWGNAM
DWGNUM1|DWGNUM2 = FILENAME
SAVENAME = FILENAMEEXT
SHEETMAX = SHEETMAX
DESC1 = DD1
DRAWINGSEC = DWGSEC
DRAWINGSUB = DWGSUB
DATE = PLOTDATE
DESC2 = DD2
DESC3 = DD3
LOCATION = IEC_L
Title1 = LINE1
Title2 = LINE2
CHECKED = LINE5
APPROVED = LINE6
INITIALS = LINE7
REV = LINE8
CONF = LINE9
PLOTSCALE = LINE10
SCALE = LINE11
Major Revision = Line12
DWGNUM2 = FILENAME
REV1L0 = LINE25
REV1L1 = LINE26
REV1INI = LINE27
REV1DATE = LINE28

Here is an example of the .wdl mapping:

LINE1 = TITLE 1
LINE2 = TITLE 2
LINE5 = CHECKED BY
LINE6 = APPROVED BY
LINE7 = DRAWN BY
LINE8 = REVISON
LINE9 = CONFIDENTIAL LEVEL
LINE10 = PLOT SCALE
LINE11 = DRAWING SCALE
Line12 = Major Revision
LINE25 = REV. 1 DESC 1
LINE26 = REV. 1 DESC 2
LINE27 = REV. 1 BY
LINE28 = REV. 1 DATE