Project setup and basic workflows

Project setup and basic workflows - Exercise

  1. Launch AutoCAD Electrical – the Start tab appears by default.
  2. Go to the Project Manager, positioned on the left side. The active project appears on the top.
  3. To activate another project, right-click on it and select Active Project Manager to work with projects and drawings.
  4. To view the project settings, right-click on the project and select Settings. Here you will find all the current settings for the project, including the file path for catalog menu files and other supporting files.
  5. Access and edit the env file. The env file is the environment file that defines all the paths for catalog, templates and libraries.
  6. To edit it, locate the environment file in the Settings menu.
  7. Open it in a notepad.
  8. Modify the path as needed, like updating the catalog data for this example. Please note, if your catalog data is stored in a different location, you will need to update the path accordingly.
  9. Save the changes and restart AutoCAD Electrical to apply the new settings.
  10. In addition to the env file, you can also adjust project Properties. To access drawing properties, right click the specific drawing in the project and select Properties from the menu.
  11. In the Drawing Properties window, you will find several key tabs with some settings that is specific to that particular drawing. Right-click on the specific drawing and select Settings Compare.
  12. Now let's take the example of Drawing Demo 04. We will modify its settings so that they differ from project defaults.
  13. Change the cross-reference format from Reference Number to Sheet Number plus (+) Reference Number.
  14. From this setting, compact table. We can clearly see these changes reflected when we run the cross-reference update across the project.
  15. Now let's revert to the project defaults by right-clicking on the drawing and selecting Apply Project Defaults. We restore the original settings.
  16. Run the cross-reference update again. The references will now show only the line reference number as the default settings have been applied.