SOLIDWORKS® Support Monthly News – March 2023

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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. Here is the list of topics covered in this month’s Blog :

  1. Enabling Native PDF Web Browser Preview in SOLIDWORKS® PDM Web2 2023.

  2. Access HTML Files Generated from SOLIDWORKS® Composer Project on a Windows® 11 Machine with Microsoft Edg.

  3. How to Launch SOLIDWORKS® in different foreign languages efficiently?

1. Enabling Native PDF Web Browser Preview in SOLIDWORKS PDM Web2 2023.

Author : Gordon PURSEL

Web2 for SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional 2023 SP1 and later versions now supports the native PDF Viewer functionality for many desktop web browsers (Chrome, Edge, etc).

Most desktop browsers will default to native PDF viewer, but depending on settings you may need to enable the native viewer.

To configure Chrome to use the native PDF viewer:

  1. In Chrome, go to: chrome://settings/content/pdfDocuments
  2. Set Open PDFs in Chrome
  3. In Web2, a PDF preview loads in the Chrome native PDF viewer.

To configure Edge to use the native PDF viewer:

  1. In Edge, go to: edge://settings/content/pdfDocuments
  2. Disable Always download PDF files
  3. In Web2, a PDF preview loads in the Edge native PDF viewer.

To configure Opera to use the native PDF viewer:

  1. In Edge, go to: opera://settings/content/pdfDocuments
  2. Set Open PDFs in Opera
  3. In Web2, a PDF preview loads in the Opera native PDF viewer

On the Web2 IIS server and client, the following occurs when a desktop web browser previews PDFs in Web2.

  1. On the Web2 IIS Server, a folder is created using a unique session ID.
  2. On the Web2 IIS Server, the PDF is copied from the vault to the session folder.
  3. On the Web2 client, the PDF displays in the web browser.

If the desktop web browser does not support native PDF viewer or configured to download PDFs, Web2 falls back to use the Oracle OutsideIn Web View.

On the Web2 IIS server and client, the following occurs when previewing PDFs with Oracle OutsideIn Web View.

  1. On the Web2 IIS Server, a folder is created using a unique session ID.
  2. On the Web2 IIS Server, the PDF is copied from the vault to the session folder.
  3. On the Web2 IIS Server, the Oracle OutsideIn preview application will extract images and text from the document and generate html pages with the preview content in the temporary session folder.
  4. On the Web2 client, the PDF displays in the Preview.

Please note native PDF previewing is only supported with desktop web browsers, mobile web browser support is planned for a later release.

2. Access HTML Files Generated from SOLIDWORKS® Composer Project on a Windows® 11 Machine with Microsoft Edge

Author : Richie MORE

With rollout of Windows® 11 Operating System, the well-known Internet Browser “Internet Explorer “  retired with a permanent disable via Microsoft Edge Update on 14th February 2023. Thus with Microsoft® Windows® 11 Operating System, there is no “Internet Explorer” browser. This results in a difficulty for most of the SOLIDWORKS® Composers users who relied on Internet Explorer browser to access the HTML Output generated from SOLIDWORKS® Composer Application.

Here is a method to access the HTML Output from SOLIDWORKS® Composer in a Windows 11 Operating System Installed machine with the inbuilt “Microsoft Edge” Browser. Follow the steps mentioned below :

  1. Initiate Microsoft Edge. Hit the 3 dots (in right top corner) > Settings.
  2. In the “Default Browser” settings, Set the option “Allow sites to be reloaded in Internet Explorer (IE mode)”
  3. Open an HTML file generated from SOLIDWORKS Composer in Microsoft Edge. Notice that the HTML is displayed blank.
  4. Hit the 3 dots (in right top corner) > ”Reload in Internet Explorer mode.”The browser may request install of ComposerPlayerActiveX.cab if the machine does not have SOLIDWORKS Composer or SOLIDWORKS® Composer Player installed already. Install the required ComposerPlayerActiveX.cab and “Allow blocked content” in the browser.
  5. The HTML file is accessible now within Microsoft Edge Browser.

 

3. How to Launch SOLIDWORKS® in different foreign languages efficiently?

Author : Rohit CHAVAN

As most of us know SOLIDWORKS® provides us the ability to use software in around 14 different foreign languages including English language. You can add or remove language pack anytime from the settings available in ‘SOLIDWORKS Installation Manager (IM) ’. We will have a detail look as we proceed further.

The language packs which are downloaded from SOLIDWORKS®, reside in location – C:\Program Files\SOLIDWORKS Corp\SOLIDWORKS\lang. So just by browsing to this location, we can identify which language packs are available.

So further in this blog, we will see how we can launch and use SOLIDWORKS® efficiently in different languages. To do so, we need to check for these 2 things:

  1. Whether the desired language pack is available or not, which is downloaded/installed from ‘SOLIDWORKS IM’.
  2. Windows Operating System consists of same desired language pack or not.

Let’s have a detail look for both conditions :

Check whether the desired language pack is available or not, downloaded from SOLIDWORKS® IM, in the location – C:\Program Files\SOLIDWORKS Corp\SOLIDWORKS\lang. If not refer below points to correctly download the necessary files.

  1. Open Control Panel > Programs > Programs and Features.
  2. Right-click SOLIDWORKS <version>and select Change.
  3. In the SOLIDWORKS® Installation Manager, click ‘Next’ until the Product Selection screen appears.
  4. Select the additional language(s) and click ‘Next’.
  5. Further accept the terms from lower left corner checkbox and click ‘Modify now’. This will download the required language pack, once download is completed, close the IM by clicking on ‘Finish’. You can check the files in above mentioned location.

Check whether Windows Operating System consists of same desired language pack or not :

Ensure that the windows consists of same language pack or not from Start Button > Settings > Time & Language > Language > under Preferred language, check whether the language pack is downloaded or not. If not then refer below steps to download the same.

    1. Select the Start button, and then select Settings > Time & Language > Language.
    2. Under Preferred languages, select ‘Add a language’.
    3. Under Choose a language to install, select or type the name of the language that you want to download and install, and then select ‘Next’.
    4. Under Install language features, select the feature ‘Install Language pack’ and then select Install. However for our purpose only language pack is needed, so you can select only ‘Install Language pack’.
    5. Close the settings.

For more details you can refer link – https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/language-packs-for-windows-a5094319-a92d-18de-5b53-1cfc697cfca8#WindowsVersion=Windows_10

And yes, that’s it, now we are all set to launch SOLIDWORKS® in foreign language, once the desired language packs are available in both conditions :

  1. Now refer below steps to proceed further
  2. Now under Time & Language > Language > under ‘Windows display language’ > select the desired language from dropdown list, the newly downloaded language appears in dropdown list > select ‘No, sign out later’ > close the window.
  3. Launch SOLIDWORKS® > it now opens in foreign language.

This is usually the recommended method to correctly launch SOLIDWORKS® in different foreign language. Similar process can be followed to launch SOLIDWORKS® in other foreign languages like German, Spanish etc…

Akhil C

SOLIDWORKS User success Engineering Specialist at Dassault Systemes
Mechanical Engineer with overall 5 years of experience in mechanical domain - Academics and Industry. 4+ years in Technical Support of Computer Aided Design and Supporting SOLIDWORKS suite of products. Certifications: 3DEXPERIENCE® Collaborative Industry Innovator, 3DEXPERIENCE® Industry Innovator, 3DEXPERIENCE® 3D Creator