SOLIDWORKS Support Monthly News – January 2020

Hello to all,

Welcome to the new edition of the SOLIDWORKS Support Monthly News!  This monthly news blog is co-authored by members of the SOLIDWORKS Technical Support teams worldwide.

 

3DEXPERIENCE WORLD 2020 is right around the corner

By Nicole Phillips

One great event you do not want to miss is 3D EXPERIENCE WORLD!  This year we’re in Nashville from February 9-12, 2020.  There is still time to register and attend this event.  Expand your knowledge with some of our available technical sessions. Join the community of designers, engineers, entrepreneurs and business leaders from around the world.  Click this link to view the Agenda and events available to you.

 

How to refresh fields in Word documents when using the Office to PDF task

By Tor Iveroth

You can link a data card variable to a custom property in a Word document. This custom property value can be inserted and displayed as fields within the document.

When you open a Word document that contains custom property fields, those field values will normally show the last saved value. If the data card variable has an updated value, the field in the document may not show this value unless it is refreshed.

 

To refresh the field values you would have to manually select and refresh the fields (CTRL+A, F9).

 

Alternatively, you could enable the “Update Linked Fields” option in the SOLIDWORKS PDM Office add-in to automatically refresh the fields when the document is opened.

 

Or you can use an auto-update refresh macro as outlined in the SOLIDWORKS PDM administration help.

 

When you convert a Word document to a PDF using the Office to PDF task, fields within the document will not automatically update unless the document contains a refresh macro. The generated PDF may show outdated values.

You can use the following steps to update the task script to automatically update fields before the PDF is generated.

1 Open the “Office to PDF” task in the administration tool.

2. In the “Output to PDF details” page, click “Advanced Scripting Options”.

3. Find the section in the script that opens the Word document
    “Dim doc As Object = wordApp.Documents.Open(docPath)

4. Below this section, add the following text:

 

 

 

 

5. The task will now refresh the fields automatically when generating the pdf.

 

Noteworthy Solutions from the SOLIDWORKS Knowledge Base

 

icon - SW When I select PMI annotations from a SOLIDWORKS® MBD to 3D PDF export, why do references to surfaces no longer appear in highlight?
For more information, see Solution Id: S-077378.

In the SOLIDWORKS® PCB software, how do I relocate the working copy to point to the URL of a different repository root?
For more information on this, see Solution Id: S-077392.

Icon - EPDM What can cause SOLIDWORKS® to stop working (crash) on systems with SOLIDWORKS® PDM and Solid Edge® 2020 installations?
For more information, see Solution Id: S-077382.

When customizing the CommandManager, how do I add the Simulation “Advisor” buttons?.
For more information on this, see Solution Id: S-077383.

In SOLIDWORKS® Flow Simulation, can I change the emissivity of the far field boundary?
For more information, check out Solution Id: S-077272.


That’s it for this month. Thanks for reading this edition of SOLIDWORKS Support News. If you need additional help with these issues or any others, please contact your SOLIDWORKS Value Added Reseller.

 

Comments and suggestions are always welcome. You can enter them below.

Nicole Phillips

Technical Customer Support Engineer, SOLIDWORKS, Americas at DS SolidWorks Corp.
I have been with DS SOLIDWORKS as a Technical Support Engineer since 2013. I provide support for our SOLIDWORKS PDM products. I also handle the SOLIDWORKS Support Monthly News blog.