Drawing View Labels enhanced in SOLIDWORKS 2014

As of SOLIDWORKS 2014, labelling of your drawing views has gotten easier and more consistent with new functionality. A few releases ago, functionality was added to control the font for each text element of the view labels for section views. In SOLIDWORKS 2014, that same level of control was added for all types of views, including Orthographic. These options are found under each view type at Tools>Options…>Document Properties>Views.

Each company has different standards or preferences to display almost every element on a drawing. One such point of control is how scale is displayed in view labels. There is an option that allows you to set your scale to be displayed without spaces.

In Document Properties for Orthographic views, the option Show label if view scale differs from sheet scale was replaced by Add view label on view creation. The old option only added a view label if a new view was at a different scale from the sheet at the time of creation. This prevented you from adding labels just because the scale was the same as the sheet.

Add view label on view creation matches the behavior of view labels for section views, detail view and auxiliary views. With this option checked, all new orthographic views have a view label added regardless to the sheet scale. However, just like seciton views, the sheet scale is not displayed if the scale is the same as the sheet. So, if you want to label your orthographic view with the drawing view name, you can now do so, even if the scale of the view is the same as the sheet.

You can also automatically add view labels to other types of views via Tools>Options…>Document Properties>Views>Other.

Even if you don’t use automatically generated view labels from the Document Properties, you can still add view labels to any view on your drawing. Right-click on any drawing view where a label is not present, then select Add view label. (Of course, the view label will be empty if you only include the view scale when it is the same as the sheet scale.)

You can manually edit any view label to add and remove text elements. First, uncheck Use document layout in the view label’s PropertyManager. This allows you to modify the layout of the view label without the layout being overridden by the Document Properties. Next, right-click on the view label and select Edit text in window. A column of buttons are available which allow you to add Name, Scale (if the scale is different from the sheet),