Topic Title

I'm using Datacad v.10, some of my symbols won't show, I know they are there because I can use them , once I use them then they show

thanks for your help

Hello:

Well, this is a pretty typical problem: where are the symbols and where are the templates? Are you on a network, or is everything local? Did you have an earlier version installed on this computer, and if so, is it installed in a different directory from v10?

If you open a typical template in a text editor, what do the paths look like? Are they relative paths (\Sym\subdirectory\symbolname), or are they absolute paths (C:\DataCAD\Sym\subdirectory\symbolname)?

I'm using Datacad v.10, some of my symbols won't show, I know they are there because I can use them , once I use them then they show

thanks for your help

Troubleshooting template and symbol problems can be quite complex.
Each template file, which has a *.TPL extension, is a text file which
contains paths to tell DataCAD the location of the associated symbols,
which have a *.SM3 extension. If the path points to the wrong
location, or the symbol files have been moved to a different location,
the symbols will not appear when the template file is opened in your
DataCAD drawing.

For the purpose of troubleshooting, you should test opening template
files in a new DataCAD drawing, instead of an existing drawing. The
reason is that each time you insert a symbol into a DataCAD drawing, a
copy of that symbol's definition gets saved to the drawing file
header. The next time you open the template file, the symbol
definition is read form the drawing file header, as opposed to the
symbol file definition on the hard drive. As such, the template would
display the symbol even if the original symbol file had been deleted
from the hard drive.

Here's what you need to do:

Select one of the template files that does not work, and make a note
of the name and location of the file on the hard drive. Using Windows
Explorer, locate the file and open it using Notepad. Inside the file,
you will see the words "DataCAD Template File version 01.10" then two
numbers representing the divisions across and down. After the
asterisk are the symbol file paths which point to the symbols on the
hard drive.

There are two types of paths, absolute and relative.

An absolute path starts with a drive letter. It would look something
like this:

C:\DataCAD\SYM\Sub-folder\symbol_name

This path points to the exact location of the symbol file. If you
follow this path in Explorer and the symbol is not there, DataCAD will
be unable to display the symbol when you open the template. You can
either move the symbol into the correct location as specified by this
path, or manually type the correct path in the template file to point
to the actual location of the symbol file.

The second type is a relative path, which does not start with a drive
letter. It is relative to either the path that is defined in the
Symbols field on the Pathnames tab of Tools\Program Preferences, or it
is relative to the folder in which DataCAD is installed. A relative
path would look something like this:

SYM\Sub-folder\Symbol_name

If the Pathname field has a drive letter in it, DataCAD concatenates
the value in that field with the value in the template file. For
example, if the Pathname field contained the drive letter for a mapped
network drive such as S:\, the path for the symbol file would be
S:\SYM\Sub-folder\Symbol_name.

If the Pathname field contains the value SYM\, the program assumes the
path is relative to the folder in which DataCAD is installed.

Sorry for the long description, but symbols and templates is a very
complicated feature to troubleshoot. In DataCAD 11, we replaced
symbols and templates with a brand new Symbol Browser which allows you
to browse any folder containing symbol files on any computer on your
network with no templates at all.