Symbols and Text

[cheechm]

Hi,

I work in the lighting design industry and use VW for the designs. At the moment I seem to be making a mess of my document by just copying and pasting the drawings of the lights onto loads of different layers. What I tried to do was make each of these a symbol, however because they all have text, I seem to be having trouble. I can easily create the symbol with the text labels (with default text in them), however when I add ths symbol and change the text, I must be editing the symbol rather than that particular instance of it because the text is changed for every symbol of that type.

maybe there is an easier way to do this?

Thanks

[Pat Stanford]

What you want/need are Symbols with Linked Text to Record.

Check the manual, but the basics are:

1. Create a Record Format with text fields for each "place" of text you want connected to the symbol.

2. Create a symbol without any text and place an instance on the drawing.

3. Put a "sample" text block in the correct relationship to the symbol.

4. Select the symbol and the text block and execute the Modify Menu: Link Text to Record command.

Now every instance of that symbol will have a text block as part of it. The text in the block can be changed for each instance by using the Data pane of the Object Info Palette.

[Jonathan Pickup]

It is as Pat says. If you want a detailed manual on this, I wrote a short manuals called Builing an Asset Database. It shows you how to make the symbols, attach the data and create a report on the objects. You can see it here:

http://www.archoncad.com/electronic-manuals.html

[cheechm]

Many thanks. Worked a treat.