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Tips & Tricks — Quickly and easily move elements from one level to another in all of your design files — in batch.

Tuesday, 23 February 2010

By Rick Sewell

Rejected! You know the feeling. It’s the one that washes away any feeling of satisfaction you might have had when you completed and submitted that last project. In looking over the reason the project was rejected, you find out that certain elements were put on the wrong level. In fact, all of the elements on “Electric-Main” shouldn’t be there and need to be moved to “Electric-Prime”. If it was just one design file, it wouldn’t be a problem, but this project has over 500 design files! So much for dinner with the family. While the changes aren’t hard, the correction will easily eat up days. This is certainly not the most efficient use of your time — or your skills.

Lucky for MicroStation users like you, there’s a solution — Global File Changer™. Global File Changer has a built-in custom command that allows you to move — in batch — all of the elements from one level (or even multiple levels) to another level in any number of design files.

Here’s how:

  1. Load Global File Changer from your Axiom pull-down menu.
  2. Select “Custom | Move elements to different levels…”. This will open the “Move Elements to Different Levels” dialog box.

    3. Figure 1. Global File Changer lets you make unlimited changes to multiple design files quickly and easily. The “Custom” menu contains a growing number of built-in commands (such as moving elements to different levels) that just cannot be done using MicroStation key-in commands.

  3. Press the <Add> button to load the “Level Mapping Rule” dialog box.

    4. Figure 2. The “Move Elements to Different Levels” dialog box lets you easily set up rules for moving elements from one level to another level — in batch — in just a few or in hundreds or thousands of design files.

  4. Press the <Levels…> button next to the top field labeled “Move elements from which levels?”
    This will open a dialog box that lists of all of the available levels in your active file.

    5. Figure 3. You can choose which level or levels you want to quickly move elements from — in batch — with this super-simple interface.

  5. In this example, we’re moving all of the elements from “Electric-Main” to another level. So, you would select “Electric-Main” and press <OK>.
  6. Next, press <Level…> (Figure 2) which is next to the field labeled “To level:”. This will open the same “Select Levels” dialog box as in Step 4, only this time we are selecting the level that your elements are to be moved to.
  7. For this example, you would select “Electric-Prime”, and press <OK>.
  8. Press <OK> again on the “Level Mapping Rule” dialog box.
  9. Now, at the “Move Elements to Different Levels” dialog box, you can see the “Source” and “Target” levels that you have selected. You can make further selections if you choose, but for this example, we’re finished.

    10. Figure 4. Never get stuck again manually moving elements from one level to another. The “Move Elements to Different Levels” dialog box , shown here, displays the rules that you have set up for moving elements — in batch — from one level (or levels) to another level.

  10. Press <OK> on the “Move Elements to Different Levels” dialog box.
  11. You will be prompted to choose a location and file name for saving the instructions you just created for Global File Changer to use while processing. Do so and press <OK> to return to the main Global File Changer dialog box.
  12. From the main Global File Changer dialog box, press <Select…>, which is next to the “Design Files:” field. This will open the “Choose Files to Process” dialog box.

    13. Figure 5. The button makes it easy to select any number of design files that contain the elements you want to move from one level (or levels) to another level. Whether you select a few or a few hundred files, Global File Changer will process them all in batch, quickly moving your elements to the level you selected.

Here, you can browse for all of the files you need to process. There is more than one way to select your files for processing. From talking to customers, I’ve found that most users just press the “Browse for files” button. This will allow you to navigate to and select each file that should be processed. Once your files are selected, press <OK> .

Finally, press <Start> on the main Global File Changer dialog box to process your files.

After a matter of minutes the job will be complete! Your client won’t believe that you made the necessary changes in that amount of time. Now you can go back to the feeling of satisfaction of finally having the project complete.

Send us your MicroStation tips!

We will give you full credit for the tip and your peers will look at you with the reverence a MicroStation guru rightly deserves! Send your favorite MicroStation tip to MsTips@AxiomInt.com.

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Tips & Tricks — MicroStation drawing inspection made easier than ever.

Wednesday, 30 December 2009

By Steve Palmer

Are you often burdened with the task of manually inspecting multiple project design files in preparation for CAD standards inspections? Is it tedious for you to open up each project file, one by one, to check how well your drafting crew (or a subcontractor) complied with your drafting standards? How much time does this typically consume for each project — hours, days, weeks?

How would you like to dramatically reduce the amount of time required to inspect and correct multiple design files? Like minutes rather than hours, days or weeks?

Axiom’s CadExplorer™ (formerly known as CadExplore Browser™) technology allows you to instantly view and analyze MicroStation project data in ways never before possible. It allows you to display all elements in all files with infinitely flexible sorting and filtering so that you can easily see standards violations, errors and oddball departures which would never be spotted without CadExplorer technology.

And you can save and reuse your favorite CadExplorer filters and sorts. This feature lets you easily return to the precise view of your project data, so you can quickly confirm that all errors and oddball departures have been addressed.

You can easily do this with CadExplorer — here’s how:

First, CadExplorer automatically collects information from your project files and CadExplorer Server automatically maintains your CadExplorer database — so project information is ready for immediate access at any time using CadExplorer.

When you start CadExplorer, all project information, as shown in Figure 1, is displayed in a spreadsheet-like grid. The grid displays one row for each element (line, circle, cell, text, etc.) in your design files.

CadExplorer-Figure-1-b-Revised

Figure 1. CadExplorer allows you to view CAD project information — such as details about every graphical element in a project — in a spreadsheet-like grid.

For even a small project, CadExplorer’s grid will typically contain thousands of rows — one row for each element in the whole project. To keep all of this information under your control, CadExplorer provides tools, which make it easy to filter and sort project data exactly the way you need to see it.

For example, with just a couple mouse-clicks you can direct CadExplorer to group and summarize the level names used in all project design files.

CadExplorer-Level-Names-2RA

Figure 2. CadExplorer makes it easy to group data. For example, to group information by “Level Name”, simply click and drag the column heading “Level Name”, then drop it into the space above the column headings.

This drag and drop action groups all elements under the level name on which they reside. This grouping allows you to instantly see oddball, non-compliant level names and find out exactly where they are being used.

CadExplorer-Level-Names-3RA

Figure 3. When you drag and drop the column heading “Level Name” into the blank area below the tabs, CadExplorer collapses (groups together) all drawing elements which reside on each level. For example, Figure 3 shows four elements on the level named “temporary”. Who created that non-standard level? Click on the “+” symbol to view details about the elements residing on the oddball level “temporary” — details such as “which project files the elements on the non-standard level reside in”.

This summarized view allows you to inspect all the level names in use by all design files in your entire project — and you can see this instantly without opening any of the files with MicroStation.

From this grouped view, you can now click on the “+” sign next to a level name to display the elements which have been placed on that level.

CadExplorer-Level-Names-4RA

Figure 4. In this example, four elements were placed on the non-standard level named “temporary” in Floor2.dgn. Double-click on one of the four rows to view the illegally placed elements with MicroStation — this allows you to immediately handle elements placed on this non-standard level.

When you double-click on a specific element, CadExplorer automatically opens the design file in MicroStation and zooms in on that element. You can then easily use MicroStation commands to delete or modify the few oddball elements that were revealed by CadExplorer.

Click CadExplorer’s “Save SmartTab” tool to save this customized layout — all sorting and filtering is remembered. Your customized layout thereafter displays on the SmartTabs menu for handy reuse whenever needed!

CadExplorer-SmartTabs-1RA

Figure 5. SmartTabs are saved and reusable customized views of your project data. Your SmartTab names appear in the SmartTabs menu.

That’s just the beginning for CadExplorer.
This article illustrates just a few of the time-saving, unprecedented CadExplorer features you can use to group and summarize any important design file information you need to quickly find and view in your project files.

Recent CadExplorer releases now include the ability to search and replace the content of text elements as well as the ability to update element symbology. For a complete overview of CadExplorer, get a free on-line demonstration!

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Tips & Tricks — Replace the reference file paths in all of your sheet files at the same time!

Wednesday, 14 October 2009

By Rick Sewell

Have you ever completed a project and then found out that the client needs some of the references saved with a different path? The purpose of this article is to show you how to replace the reference file path saved in your sheet files — while retaining all of your varying reference file names — in just minutes.

  1. Load RefManager from your “Axiom” menu in MicroStation.
  2. On the main dialog box, set “Action:” to “Modify Reference File Attachments”.

    3. RefManager has a variety of features, such as “Modify Reference file Attachments”, which allow you to solve any MicroStation reference file problem fast!

  3. The “Modify Reference File Attachments” dialog box now appears with the “Category” already set to “Attachment Names”. Now, set the “Component:” to “Full Path”.
  4. Change the “Method:” to “Replace Entire String”. (The “From:” field will become inactive.)
  5. In the “To:” field, enter the full new path that you want to use. It’s okay if the new path only exists on your client’s network.

    6. RefManager allows you to change any or all of the components of a reference file path in all of your sheet files at once.

  6. Press the (Close) button to return to the main dialog box.
  7. Press the (Attachments…) button.
  8. On the “Filter Reference File Attachments By” dialog box, click on “File Name” in the Category list.
  9. In the “String:” field, enter the names of the reference files whose paths you want to change in your sheets. Put a semi-colon (“;”) between each file name.

    The reference file attachment filter allows you to very specifically define which reference file attachments will be modified. This kind of pinpoint accuracy is part of what makes RefManager so powerful.

    Note: This limits the string substitution RefManager is going to perform to only the reference files you specify. This is so you control exactly which attachments get this new path. For example:

    Say there are a whole bunch of different reference files attached to your sheet files, and these reference files are all attached using that same path you are going to change. However, you only want to change the path for the attached reference files named “construct.dgn” and “main.bdr”. In the “String:” field, enter:

    construct.dgn;main.bdr

    This way, only “construct.dgn” and “main.bdr” will have their paths changed.

    It is also possible to use wildcards in the “String:” field so as to allow a broader range of reference file names to be processed. For example, “main*.*” would find and process files such as: main.dgn, main.bdr, main-border.dg1.

  10. Press the (Close) button to return to the main RefManager dialog box.
  11. Use the “Master Files:” field to tell RefManager which sheet files to process. You can use — like “*.— if you like. Or use the
    button to choose files graphically. You can choose as many files as you want and process them all in one job with RefManager.
  12. Press to process your files!
  13. Now — in just — all of the files you are processing will reference “construct.dgn” and “main.bdr” with the new path!

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Four problems users have with MicroStation

Friday, 15 May 2009

And four solutions!

Have you ever had difficulty importing text from Microsoft Word or tables from Excel into MicroStation with the correct text justification, tabs and spacing intact?

Have you ever opened a design file and discovered that one or more reference files are not attached due to messed up reference file attachment paths?

Have you ever needed to make changes to some text in hundreds of design files, requiring someone to open each file, one at a time, just to change a few lines?

Have you ever had a design file added to a project requiring you to now renumber a large portion of the files in the project?

All of these situations can be frustrating and time-consuming.

Is it frustrating not being able to import spreadsheet and word processing data with the correct formatting?
What do MicroStation users do when they need to import text or spreadsheets (large or small) into their design files with perfect formatting?

Just highlight and copy your Excel data (or word-processing text) to make it ready for Microsoft Office Importer to paste into MicroStation. The above is a simple example. In actual fact, Microsoft Office Importer can handle massive spreadsheets and documents (including those with very complex formatting).

Using MicroStation’s native Paste and Paste Special functions, users often find that their spreadsheets and Word documents become nothing like they used to be. Also, what if you need to paste a bill of materials (or a schedule) into a design file and keep a link to the original spreadsheet? The handling is as simple as this:

Microsoft Office Importer is easy to use. Just click the “Paste” icon to paste the contents of the clipboard into your design file.

  1. Open your Excel spreadsheet or Word document and copy to the clipboard whatever you want placed into MicroStation.
  2. Load MicroStation and open the design file you want to import data into.
  3. Microsoft Office Importer will auto-load and be ready for you to just press the <Paste Clipboard Contents> button. (Or if you don’t yet have Microsoft Office Importer, just give Axiom a call.)
  4. Now data-click anywhere on the design plane to make your paste.

When you paste data using <i>Microsoft Office Importer</i>, all the data comes in with perfect formatting (even on spreadsheets a hundred times the size of the above). Plus Microsoft Office Importer does it all in one paste.

That’s it. Problem solved.

Messed up reference file attachments paths?
A customer from a large engineering firm once called me and said that over the weekend, the IT department had changed a server drive letter from “H:” to “I:”, which was no big deal to the people in the IT department. However, it was a big deal to my friend on the other end of the line, as this “minor change” broke every single reference attachment in all their projects — totaling over ten thousand design files. Also, for some reason beyond his control, it was not going to be possible to change the drive letter back. This story ended happily, however. I told him how to perform the steps below with RefManager™ and it solved his whole problem. Now I’ll share this solution with you.

To make a simple example, we’ll say that all your design files were moved from the “H:” drive to the “I:” drive, without any changes to the folder structure. Here’s how to fix that problem:

  1. Open MicroStation and choose RefManager for V8 from your Axiom menu.
  2. Choose “Modify Reference File Attachments” from RefManager’s “Action:” option button. The “Modify Reference File Attachments” box will open and the “Attachment Names” category will be selected by default.
  3. In the “From:” field, enter the old drive letter, “H:” (without the quote marks).
  4. In the “To:” field, enter the new drive letter, “I:” (without the quote marks).
  5. In the “Apply to:” field, choose “Only Vector Reference Files”.

    In the example above, the user has told RefManager to change the drive letter stored in his reference attachments from “H:” to “I:”. The user can run this modification on multiple master design files, easily changing all his reference attachments in one easy job.

  6. Press <Close> to close the “Modify Reference File Attachments” box.
  7. In the main RefManager dialog box, press the <Select> button next to the “Master Files:” field. Then select the master files whose reference attachments you want to process. When done, press <OK> to return to the main RefManager dialog box.
  8. Press <Start>. RefManager will replace “H:” drive with “I:” drive in any vector reference attachments in which a path containing “H:” drive is stored. Case (such as an upper-case “H” or a lower-case “h”) is unimportant as this command performs case-insensitive text substitution by default.

It’s as easy as that. When RefManager is done, press the <Display Report> button to get a detailed report of what RefManager did.

Now all your vector reference attachments that had a saved path containing “H:” drive (or “h:” drive) have been changed to point to “I:” drive. If it was any easier, it’d be magic.

Keep in mind the example above is a simple one. RefManager can handle all manner of complex modifications, regardless of why things got all messed up in the first place.

Have you ever spent hours making repetitive changes to some text throughout hundreds of design files?
The need to find and replace various pieces of text throughout a set of design files is something that happens all the time for any number of reasons. Whether it’s making a date change on every sheet in a project or replacing the prefix on every part identification number displayed in thousands of cells throughout a large set of design files, it’s inevitable that changes will be needed. When you have to process lots of files or make lots of different changes, it can be time-consuming, tedious and error-prone.

Say you discover that thousands of text elements scattered throughout an entire set of project files use the words “Street”, “Drive” and “Avenue”. They were all supposed to have been abbreviated but they’ve all been spelled out instead. This “oops” could leave you with a time-consuming, profit-eating ordeal. Fortunately, there’s an easy and quick way to fix this.

Below are the steps:

  1. Open MicroStation and launch Global File Changer from the Axiom pull-down menu.
  2. Open the Modify Text custom dialog box by selecting “Custom|Modify Text…”.
  3. Select the “Replace Text” tab on the “Modify Text” dialog box.
  4. The <String Format> button can be set to either “Wildcard” or “Regex”. “Regex” is short for “Regular Expression” which is an advanced way for matching specific patterns of text strings. For instance, if you wanted to find the text strings “AG22Street” and “AG33Revision” but not “AG44Ramp” you could use a regular expression that would enable you to find just the first two and exclude the last one. This allows for more sophisticated search and replace functions to be performed in a single operation. For this example, we will just use “Wildcard”.

    The “Replace Text” tab gives you the ability to set multiple search strings and their replacement values.

  5. Enter the text value you are searching for in the “Search String” field and what you want it replaced with in the “Replacement String” field.
  6. Click the <Add> button to add it to the list of replacement combinations.
  7. Repeat steps 5 and 6 for each search and replace combination you want to make.
  8. After they are all entered, click the <OK> button and you will be prompted to save this list of changes. Save the file with any name and location you want. (This is so you can use it later if you like.)
  9. You will be returned to Global File Changer’s main dialog box, where all you have left to do is choose the files you want to process and click the <Start> button to make the replacements you just defined to every file in the list automatically.

Just click <Start> and Global File Changer will replace every matching text element with the new replacement text in all the selected design files.

Within just a few minutes, the text replacements will be complete in all the targeted design files.

How do you quickly renumber 237 sheets?
Imagine that your project is due out on Monday. Your project team spent the weekend putting the final touches on the job. All the 237 sheets have been plotted for the final check. Everything appears to be in order and the tension is starting to ease. Then all of sudden a blood-curdling scream resonates throughout the office. The sheet numbers are wrong. The sheet total is off by one on every sheet and every sheet number higher than 17 is off by one.

Now raise your hand if you would manually open all 237 sheets to edit text? That is just how it has always been done and it works just fine as long you want to spend the entire afternoon editing text in 237 separate sheet files. If you can modify one sheet in one minute, stay on task, not get any phone calls, and not make any mistakes, then we are talking three hours and 57 minutes just to modify the text.

With Title Block Manager, you don’t have to open up each design file individually to make changes to your title blocks. Title Block Manager allows you to quickly update your design files in bulk from changes made in Excel or Access.

You can break it up and give sections to different people to hurry things along. That could make it go faster, or it could just make things worse and increase the chances for error. Let’s round it up to four man-hours just for editing the design files. I don’t remember the last time that I had four hours uninterrupted.

Fortunately, there is another option. It takes about five minutes:

  1. Open MicroStation and start Title Block Administrator.™
  2. With Title Block Administrator loaded, click on the <Select…> button next the “Database” field. Navigate to and select your Microsoft Excel (or Access) database.

    You can quickly and easily renumber all 237 title blocks at one time.

  3. Click on the <Edit Database> button on the Title Block Administrator main dialog box. This will open the database selected in step 2 above.
  4. Increment the values in the “Sheet” column to accommodate the renumbering. Save and close the database.
  5. Press the <Select > button next to the “Design Files:” field in the main Title Block Administrator dialog box. This will load the “Choose Files to Process” dialog box that allows you to select the sheet files for processing.
  6. Set “Action:” to <Update selected files from database>. Click <Start>.
  7. Check your e-mail, get some coffee and a few minutes later the job is complete.

Which scenario sounds better — the one that takes you four hours or the one that takes about five minutes?

Putting it all together
We have found that MicroStation users often come across more than one of the above scenarios. This is one of the reasons why we made sure that all four of the products in this article are included in MicroStation Acceleration Garage, a cost-efficient package of nearly all of Axiom’s time-saving software products and e-learning courses.

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Tips & Tricks — How to quickly find any text string (or just about anything else) in all the design files at your entire site

Friday, 15 May 2009

By Rick Sewell

Have you ever had a need to determine which of your massive set of DGN project files contained a specific text string or a particular cell or model or level? How do you handle those situations now? How much time have you lost on projects just trying to locate things? How much money do you lose on time-consuming searches?

Now you can instantly and easily locate almost any design file component in any DGN file at your entire site — and that’s just the beginning.

I routinely field calls from MicroStation users and CAD managers who are looking for ways to find a specific graphical element which they know is located somewhere in one or more of their hundreds (or thousands) of MicroStation files. Now that CadExplore Browser™ has been released, I can’t wait to tell you what can be accomplished with this powerful new technology.

Example: How to find every instance of a specific text string in all your design files (and how to modify it)
 There are any number of examples I can use, but I’ve chosen this one because it represents a real-world customer request that I believe will be useful for most MicroStation users.

  1. Load CadExplore Browser.
  2. Click on the “Elements” tab.

    Figure 1. In CadExplore Browser, every column has a filter button allowing limitless display possibilities for your CAD data.

  3. Locate the column labeled “Text”.
  4. Hover your mouse over the “Text” column to display the filter icon. Click the filter icon.
  5. Choose “(Filter Editor)”. This will display the “Filter Editor” dialog box.
  6. Click on “Is not blank” and set it to “abc Contains” (shown in Figure 2).
  7. In the “<enter a value>” field, enter the text value that you are looking for. For this example, we will search for the text string “Project X” (Figure 3).
  8. Press <Apply> to activate your filter.
    Each row represents an instance of a given element in a design file. CadExplore Browser’s grid will refresh and display only those rows that match your filter. In this example, each row in Figure 4, represents a single instance of the text string we searched for (“Project X”) along with the name of the DGN file and model where the instance resides.

    Figure 2. With CadExplore Browser, you can choose from many different filtering options to create a filter precise enough to find a needle in a haystack.

    For this simple example, notice that CadExplore Browser found two design files (“Phase1.dgn” and “Phase2.dgn”) that contain instances of the text we searched for. (Six instances were found in “Phase1.dgn” and nine were found in “Phase2.dgn”)
    Next we will use one of my favorite CadExplore Browser features (Grouping) to create a list of the files which contain the text which matches our filter.

    Figure 3. The filter editor lets you instantly find the exact MicroStation elements you are looking for using powerful filters like the “Text Contains” filter shown here.

This results in a list that summarizes which MicroStation files contain the text you are hunting for (in this case, the text string “Project X”). No need to tediously open design files one by one to locate text! You can modify your filter to search for any other text string instantly. You can filter and group any combination of columns — so this is just a taste of the capabilities of CadExplore Browser.

Figure 4. In this example, CadExplore Browser applies the filter you defined (as shown in Figure 3) to display only those text elements which contain “Project X”, along with the name of the file and model in which each text element resides.

Now that you have your list of every design file that contains the text string “Project X”, you can do whatever you want to with it. For example, if you need to modify the selected text string, you could change every instance of it, in batch, simply by exporting the list you just created with CadExplore Browser into Microsoft Excel. By simply saving your Excel spreadsheet as a text file, you can then import it into Global File Changer™. Global File Changer can then make any change you want to every instance of your text string in those files very fast.

Figure 5. The grouping feature allows you to summarize information that is in a particular column such as the “Drive”, “Folder” or “File Name” columns. The example above shows how you would use the grouping feature to summarize the information in the “File Name” column.

There are many other things you can do too, but I’m out of space, so that will have to be the topic of another article.

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MicroStation Tip Corner — MicroStation V8 XM keyboard shortcuts

Tuesday, 7 April 2009

This month, we will go over how to speed up your V8 design work using keyboard shortcuts.

You will notice that the toolbar icons have characters below them. These are the shortcut keys associated with each tool set.

Preferences dialog (under Workspace menu)

To take advantage of these shortcuts, you must first enable Position Mapping (Workspace | Preferences).

Each tool icon has a shortcut key associated with it.

When Position Mapping is enabled, you can press the shortcut key to bring up the menu associated with that character.

By pressing the shortcut key, <Q> in this case, you can load the associated toolbar menu. After loading the menu, you can press the number key associated with the tool to load that tool.

In addition, if you want to load the tool that is already showing in the toolbar (like the Place SmartLine tool in the example above), you can just press <Shift> and the shortcut key and the tool is activated directly.

By pressing the shortcut key and <Shift>, you can load the tool directly.

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Tips & Tricks — Import Microsoft Office text into MicroStation without messing up the text height.

Saturday, 7 March 2009

By Rick Sewell
Do your Excel spreadsheets ever import into MicroStation with the right text height? The answer from many MicroStation users across the country is a resounding “No!” Thus, these MicroStation users are forced to either manually type their text using MicroStation’s “Place Text” tool with the correct text height or paste the text using one of MicroStation’s “Paste Special” options (which does not even paste your text correctly formatted unless you paste it as a raster image which can never be edited) and then scale it using MicroStation’s “Scale” tool. This process could take hours or even days depending on the amount of text that needs to be added to a design file.

Integrating Microsoft Office Importer into your workflow allows you to solve the problem of incorrect text height by allowing you to set the correct text height in the Microsoft Office Importer Settings dialog box. Once that’s done, you can import spreadsheet and word processing data into MicroStation with perfect formatting.

MicroStation users frequently need to have text at an exact height when placed into a MicroStation design file. That’s one reason why thousands of MicroStation users have adopted Microsoft Office Importer as their tool of choice for importing Excel spreadsheets and Word documents into MicroStation. Microsoft Office Importer allows you to set, among other things, the height of the text to be placed when you import spreadsheet and word processing data into MicroStation with perfect formatting.

How does it work?
Microsoft Office Importer looks at the point size of the font of the text in the source file (an Excel spreadsheet, for example) and assigns a user-defined number of MicroStation master units to each point. Larger or smaller text is then scaled based on the same ratio of number of master units per point of font size. For example, if you set Microsoft Office Importer so that each point of text size is equal to 0.5 master units, your ten-point text from a spreadsheet would be imported into MicroStation as five master units tall. If you were importing 20-point text, it would come into MicroStation as double that or ten master units tall.

Figure 1: With Microsoft Office Importer, when you import text from your spreadsheet, you can set it up so it will come in at the exact height you want, every time!

How to set text height and width
In order for your text to look right, you have to address its width too. It’s easy to set this in Microsoft Office Importer. Just follow the steps below. For this example, let’s say that you wanted text to come in at a height of 0.5 master units and you wanted the text width to be 80% of the height. [Note: By default, Microsoft Office Importer sets the width of text to be 80% of the height. This is a fairly common ratio in the world of font-sizing. However you can change that ratio to whatever you like (see below).] The height that you specify will be the height that the tallest letter (text character) will be when placed in the design file. Usually this height is the same as the height of a capitalized letter.

Figure 2: If Microsoft Office Importer’s toolbar is not open, select “Axiom | Microsoft Office Importer | Load Microsoft Office Importer for V8″ (or “V7″ if you are using V7).

  1. Push Microsoft Office Importer’s <Settings> button on Microsoft Office Importer’s toolbar. The <Settings> button is the one on the far right.
  2. Then choose the “Size” tab.

    3. Figure 3: On the “Size” tab of the Microsoft Office Importer Settings dialog box, you can select the exact height-to-width ratio that you want text to be when you place it into your design file.

  3. If the height-to-width ratio is unlocked, click on the <lock> icon to lock the height-to-width ratio. Notice that, by default, it is set to a height of “1.0″ and a width of “0.8″ (as shown in Figure 4). By locking it at this ratio, any number you type in for height will cause the width value to change so that it’s 80% of the height. [By the way, if you ever want a different height-width ratio, just unlock it, change the values in the height and width fields to whatever you want, then re-lock.]

    4. Figure 4: If the height-to-width–ratio lock icon is in the unlocked position (as depicted above), then click on it to lock it if you want to maintain the same height-to-width ratio of the height and width shown in the dialog box.

  4. Next, type “0.5″ in the “Height” field. Because the height-to-width ratio was locked at a height of “1.0″ and a width of “0.8″, the width will automatically change to “0.4″ (80% of the new height) as soon as you press on the <Update> button.

    5. Figure 5: Once you have clicked on the <Update> button, any new Microsoft Office Importer pastes will have the height-to-width ratio you specified.

  5. Press the <Update> button for the changes to become active.
  6. These settings will affect any new Microsoft Office Importer pastes in future sessions of MicroStation as long as you save the settings with “File | Save Settings” from the Microsoft Office Importer Settings dialog box.
  7. Press the <OK> button on the dialog box.

That’s it! You have just set your text height and width to exactly what you want. Now do all your text imports with Microsoft Office Importer and all your text will have perfect formatting.

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MicroStation V7 tips from Lee Wilson of Day & Zimmermann

Saturday, 7 February 2009

This month’s tips come from Lee Wilson. Lee is the CAD manager at Day & Zimmermann in Kingsport, Tennessee. Thank you for sending us in your tips, Lee!

Lee Wilson, CAD manager at Day & Zimmermann, Kingsport, Tennessee.

Back to center
Ever had a dimension extension line cover up a centerline? It is possible to turn the display of a dimension extension line on and off by using the key-in “CHANGE DIMENSION EXTENSION” and picking the element (in this case an extension line). It also works with selection sets.

To turn a dimension extension line on or off, type in “CHANGE DIMENSION EXTENSION” and select the extension line.

This will enable you to turn those extension lines off and not have to drop the dimension.

To turn a dimension extension line on or off, type in “CHANGE DIMENSION EXTENSION” and select the extension line.

It works as a toggle, so if you want to turn it back on, just click the missing extension line.

Quick copy without the fence
Ever wanted to copy a certain element or set of elements without using a fence? Using the Element Selection tool, you can pick multiple elements to copy by holding the <Ctrl> key while you select the elements. After you have selected all the elements you want to copy, press <Ctrl-C> to copy. Then, press <Ctrl-V> to paste. This will place the elements from the center point.

To go a step further, you can place a tentative point on the selection set, then press <Ctrl-C>. This procedure will place the items on your clipboard from that tentative point you selected. As long as you keep this session of MicroStation open, this can be pasted to any design file by pressing <Ctrl-V>.

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Tips & Tricks — Replace text strings with Global File Changer.

Sunday, 1 February 2009

By Rick Sewell
Global File Changer is exactly what it sounds like. This thing can change just about anything in your design files and fast. It is my personal favorite Axiom product due to its amazing versatility.

While it is true that Global File Changer is incredibly multifaceted, the single most utilized feature by far is its ability to change text. Global File Changer allows you to change a number of text attributes such as font, justification and size to name a few. However, the most commonly desired text-changing feature, in my experience, is the ability to replace an existing text string with a new text string. For this reason, I wanted to write it down for all to use.

Global File Changer’s main dialog box is jam-packed with goodies. Its bulk file-changing capabilities are limited only by your imagination.

Replacing text with Global File Changer
For this example, let’s say “Linkin Street” was misspelled as “Lincoln Street”.

  • First, load Global File Changer from the Axiom pull-down menu.
  • From the Global File Changer main dialog box, choose Custom|Modify text… and then select the “Replace Text” tab.
  • In the field labeled “Search string”, enter “Lincoln”. In the field labeled “Replacement string”, enter “Linkin”.
  • Since Global File Changer has the ability to process more than one set of search and replace parameters, it is necessary to confirm what you have entered into the “Search string” and “Replace string” fields. Press the <Add> button to commit your entries to the list.
  • Choose File|Save As… to load the “Save Modify Text File” dialog box. Enter a name and then navigate to a convenient location to save your text change parameters. Then press <Save>.
  • Press the <OK> button to return to the main Global File Changer dialog box.
  • The “Key-in File:” field will automatically be filled in with the command needed to change your text, based on the parameter file you created. Ensure that the “Design Files:” field lists the files you intend to process and the “Report File:” field contains the path and file name for the report file you want created.
  • Press <Start>!

Global File Changer’s Modify Text dialog box allows you to replace a text string with another text string in multiple design files at the touch of a button.

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Tips & Tricks — How to use a configuration variable to customize the Axiom menu

Wednesday, 7 January 2009

By Rick Sewell
Often, it is beneficial to change what products are displayed on your Axiom pull-down menu for individual users or different classes of users working in different disciplines. It removes the potential confusion of what products are available to be used and restricts user access for any products that the Administrator does not want the user to use. The aximenu.cfg file lists what programs a particular user can choose from the Axiom menu.

While it’s beneficial for users to have the Axiom menu customized with just the products they will be using, Administrators need to have access to the full array of Axiom products. With that the case, you may find it advantageous to set up an aximenu.cfg file for the Administrator and one for each of the different types of users. This is not a difficult task and is described in detail below. Once you’ve modified the file, simply save it somewhere logical for you. If there are multiple users or Administrators that will use this menu, save it to a shared location. If it is only for a single user or Administrator, it may be best to save it to their local machine.

Making changes to your workspace configuration can significantly enhance your design environment.

How to use a configuration variable to load the Axiom menu
What displays on your Axiom pull-down menu is determined by the contents of a simple text file called “aximenu.cfg”. This file can be modified in various ways to customize the Axiom pull-down menu.

The aximenu.cfg file is located in the aximenu folder that is directly underneath your Axiom base directory (the location where you installed your Axiom products). The default location for the Axiom base directory for V7 is “C:Program FilesAxiomV7″ and for V8 the location is “C:Program FilesAxiomV8″. To modify the file, simply open it up with your favorite text editor and remove lines that you don’t want to appear in the menu. You can also change the order in which the menu items appear. When you’re done, simply save the file either to a shared location (if more than one person will be using this file) or to the local machine of the person who will be using it.
In order to load your modified aximenu.cfg file, you will need to set a configuration variable, “AXIMENU_CONFIG”, in MicroStation and enter the location of the modified file. By providing a path to the modified aximenu.cfg file, MicroStation will open the modified aximenu.cfg file instead of the aximenu.cfg file located in the default directory mentioned above. The steps on how to do this are shown below.

How to set the MicroStation configuration variable
Let’s say that your default aximenu.cfg file is located in “C:Program FilesAxiomV8″ and you have a modified file located in C:Bentley. If you want to be able to use the modified file, you would do the following steps:

  1. Load MicroStation and open a design file.
  2. Select Workspace|Configuration… and MicroStation’s Configuration Dialog box will open.
  3. Press the button labeled <New…> and the “New Configuration Variable” dialog box will come up.
  4. In the field labeled “Variable:” enter the variable name: AXIMENU_CONFIG
  5. In the field labeled “New Value:” enter the name and location for the aximenu.cfg file you want to use. In this case, we want to use the modified file in C:bentley, so enter the following:
    C:Bentleyaximenu.cfg as the new value.
  6. Press <OK> to exit this dialog box and then <OK> on the Configuration dialog box. You will be prompted with an Alert dialog box to “Save changes to your configuration file.” Press <Yes> to accept the changes.
  7. Restart MicroStation.

Select the Axiom pull-down menu and you’ll now see the menu as defined by the newly specified aximenu.cfg file.

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