Applying Formats with Styles - SmartSketch - Help

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Smart Engineering Manager Version
11
SmartSketch Version
11

If you want elements that are the same type to look alike, you should use styles, a collection of formats that can be applied to the following items:

  • Geometric elements

  • Dimensions

  • Annotations

  • Fills

Using styles ensures consistency. If you place or draw one or more elements, the formats in the style are applied directly to the elements. You do not have to spend time formatting as you draw. You can apply the formats in each style again and again.

The software provides styles that you can apply to elements so that they conform to an engineering standard, such as ISO or ANSI.

Managing Styles

Using the Format > Style command, you can create several styles so that elements in a drawing appear the way you want. You can use or modify the styles delivered with the software, or you can set up new ones that conform to your unique requirements. One or more styles can be stored in a template so that you can use them in other drawings.

The software divides styles into types, such as text, dimension, line, and fill. A style type contains one or more styles. You can create styles for each style type. When you create a new document based on a template, the template is copied. The copy includes any styles that are in the template.  Fonts are never copied into a document. If you want someone to view the fonts, and that person's system does not have the same fonts installed, you should give that person the fonts along with the document.

Including Styles from Other Documents in a Template

If you want to make styles from other documents available in the current document, you can reference the styles with style resource documents. You can reference a style resource document to the active template or document by clicking Resources on the Styles dialog box. The Style Resources dialog box allows you to add style resource documents to the current template or document. Style resource documents can be any .igr document or .RSC line style file that contains styles native to that document.

If you create a document based on a template, any style resource documents attached to the template are attached to the new document as well. When you reference a style resource document from the current document or template, the styles in the resource document are added to the Style dropdown list on the active document's ribbon.  When you apply a style to an element on the drawing sheet, the style is copied from the style resource document to the current document.  The fonts are added to the dropdown list on the ribbon as well, but are not copied into the current document.

Applying Styles

The style type determines what type of item to which you can apply a style. A text style can be applied to text within a text box. A fill style can be applied to a fill. A line style can be applied to any geometric element such as a line, arc, circle, or ellipse.  A dimension style can be applied to a dimension or balloon.

When you place dimensions or annotations, or draw elements, the formats from their default styles are applied automatically. For example, if you click SmartDimension on the Dimension toolbar, the ANSI style appears on the ribbon.  Each dimension that you place receives the ANSI style.  To apply a different style, you can change the style name on the ribbon before or after you draw or place an element.

Applying Styles to More Than One Element

Selecting more than one element and then applying the same style to them removes any previous formats—the elements now all have the same formats from the style that you applied. To do this, you must select elements that are in the same style type, such as text, dimension, fill, or line. For example, you cannot apply a line style to a dimension.

To preserve the data integrity of your custom styles files from one software version to the next, Intergraph PPM recommends after installing the latest version of the software that you open all your custom styles files and save them to the new file format.

See Also

Applying Unique Formats