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I know how to explode a single symbol after it's already inserted into the drawing. Is there a way to window around a bunch of unexploded symbols to explode them onto the current layer? When I do a demo plan, I will usually copy over the electrical symbols from the as-built electrical plan that are to get demo'd and I then want those unexploded symbols to become a different color and line type. So, I explode those symbols so that the color and LT can be changed. Doing this one symbol at a time is a real time consumer and carpel tunnel creator.

The Explode function in the 3D Menus is where you want to head. Just select Sym Exp and have at it!

Dave

KABOOOOOOM. It works. Of course it works. You wrote the book, literally. Odd that one needs to go all the way over therrrrrrrrrre to the 3D menu for that 2D function but hey, one can only fit so much #$%&*! into the 2D menus.

Thanks Dave. My time clock and my wrists than you.

You can also get there from the Tools pull-down menu.

Dave

Here's my keyboard shortcut that takes me straight to the 3D Symbol Explode:

If this is something you do a lot of, using the same symbols over and over and you are coping the symbols into a different drawing that does not already have the symbols in it, you could create a base file for your demo plan that has a copy of the same exact symbols in it, say in a schedule or something. If you double click on each symbol to open them in the symbol editor, you can change their colors and line spacing as needed. Save and close each symbol. Save that file as your Demo Base. Then when you need to setup a new demo plan for a project you can copy the entities from your as built plan into the demo base and since all the symbols already exist in your demo base all of the symbols being imported will use the symbol definition in your demo base file that has the colors and linetypes set for the demo plan settings and then you can get all the benefits of using symbols still since you didn't have to explode anything. Granted this method would only really be beneficial to those who use multiple files for their projects where the demo plan could live in it's own file and the symbols in question would not need to exist in a format in that drawing other than what is needed for the demo plan.

You could also create a set of symbols for the demo items and use the symbol replace function to change the appropriate ones.

This brings up a wish list item - the "layer color" feature in the move or copy to layer function is very cool and we use it for moving existing elements to a demo layer where the color is pre-set. We still have to manually change the line type however. It would be great if line type, spacing, etc. could also be included as options in the move or copy to layer function.

jimgoodman wrote:...This brings up a wish list item - the "layer color" feature in the move or copy to layer function is very cool and we use it for moving existing elements to a demo layer where the color is pre-set. We still have to manually change the line type however. It would be great if line type, spacing, etc. could also be included as options in the move or copy to layer function.

Stay tuned.

Dave

Does this mean the ability to set line type and spacing by layer may be in the works as well?

jimgoodman wrote:Does this mean the ability to set line type and spacing by layer may be in the works as well?

Umm... No, that's a bit further off.

Dave

David A. Giesselman wrote:

jimgoodman wrote:Does this mean the ability to set line type and spacing by layer may be in the works as well?

Umm... No, that's a bit further off.

Dave

It will be worth the wait