Some of the blocks don't print correctly from Edrawings. It
would be nice to just be able to RMB click on a drawing from within
SW PDM and print it without opening SW explorer.
To expand on this a little. I do not think it is possible but
Ihave to ask. Is there a way to print drawings from the
vaultwithout checking them out? There are many occasions that I
wouldlike to print several drawings but would like to save some
time bynot checking them all out.
Even being able print all drawings in a project would be a
nicefeature. Any suggestions?
Jason - As mentioned by Peter, the Task Scheduler will do
this. You can set up a task to grab a project's worth of drawings
to print at a certain time (lunch always works). Whether the
quality is good or not, you'll have to decide.
An alternative method is simply RMB on the drawing in PDMWorks,
select Doc Info, go to the View tab and print there. You do not
have to check them out or even have Read/Write permissions to do
this. It can also be done inside SolidWorks, SolidWorks Explorer or
the Web client.
What stinks about the task scheduler is the print options are
very limited. We have drawings that range in size from A to D. You
can only run one setup at a time. You also can't select mulitple
files, its either an entire project or nothing. There is no way to
print single files or selections of files from the vault using the
task scheduler. You could create a temporary project in the vault
for batch printing, but then in our case we would be back to the
limitations of different sizes not being able to be properly
handled with a single batch job. It would be nice if you could
setup print options for different sizes and then read the file upon
printing and apply the correct print options depending on the paper
size. The print from vault tool is very limited. Seems like it was
put in there just so SolidWorks could say "we have that."
I generally always print on the same size, so that would not
be aproblem with me. I had never used Task Scheduler before, but
itappears it will work just as I need, if I can get it to
workcorrectly. Within the task scheduler I go to the "PrintPDMWorks
Workgroup Files", I am prompted to enter PDM username and password
and vault name, and set it up to print all*.drw;*.slddrw
within a certain project. The first time I tried it,on a small
project it worked great. It created the sub tasks andprinted the
few drawings. I then tried it on a larger project, with37 drawings,
and it does not work. I schedule it for a few minuetsahead and
wait.......nothing happens. The status never changes
from"scheduled". I tried different printers, I tried thesmaller
project that worked the first time. Nothing. I am lost. Itworked
the first time, but now it does nothing. Any thought?
Jason - There is a backend service that needs to be running
when the scheduled task is set to launch - swboengine.exe located
in C:\Program Files\SolidWorks 2007\swScheduler. It gets placed in
the Programs > Startup group on installation but a lot of people
remove it (including me). You can easily double click on the .exe
file to get it running, then schedule your task.
If that isn't it, then I would try another project with a smaller
set of drawings and work your way up to the 37.
Ok, that was the
trick. I just restart and it works fine.That program must have shut
down for some reason or had a problem.Thank you for that.
As a note, the printing works well, but you might as well
walk awayfrom the computer. Cause I can't do anything while it is
running.But it prints as needed, so that is fine with me. I just
take mylunch then.
That's weird. I tried both printing vault files from my own
computer and from my colleagues' computer. First I check if
swboengine.exe is running and it was on both computers.
On my PC I get "The specified password was not accepted", even
though I'm 100% sure it's correct. I use the same password for
vault admin and tried several times, this must be a bug?
On my colleagues PC, I login fine using my user and password(!?)
but printing doesn't start. Again swboengine.exe is running! I was
asked to create a working folder, and I did pres yes to C:/temp
When looking in this folder I find one file called
"swBKTask.error". It has a zero byte size, and opening with notepad
shows an empty file.
Sounds like a call to your VAR for some tech support might be
in order. You may have some Windows permission problems going on.
Not really sure without getting more info - problem is I'm sure
what info to get.
Ok, that was the
trick. I just restart and it works fine.That program must have shut
down for some reason or had a problem.Thank you for that.
Pete