Hi all! I'm experiencing a problem with my deafult overall drafting standard (found in tools-> options-> document properties -> "overall drafting standards"). Ever since I've used solidworks the default has always been ANSI. A while back I created some templates for the company I work for, saved them as templates in ANSI formats and in the correct location for templates. Everything worked great (The templates I created all showed up when I created a new drawing). Recently however, the templates somewhow seemed to get lost (they were nowhere to be found when I created a new drawing). Well, I found them, relocated them to the correct folder (under solidworks-> solidworks2012 -> templates) and they showed up again when I created a new drawing. Now the issue is that even though they are saved as a template ( a .DRWDOT file) and even though the document settings are all in ANSI, when I create a new part file, my overall drafting settings, along with my units, default to ISO. so everytime I create a new part, which is quite often, I have to manually go to options and change the drafting settings to ANSI, then change the units (the small tab in the lower right hand side of the screen in 2012) to units of IPS (inch, pounds, seconds). While this isn't a detrimental problem and doesn't stop me from working, its really annoying to have to make that change EVERY time I make a new part. This wasn't happening before and the loss of those templates seems to have triggered something, even though I relocated them and seemed to fix the problem. I have read several forums and similar issues and the response always seems to involve saving templates in the desired format as templates and NOT drawings. But I have done this! and my problem is not creating a drawing in the right format, its creating a new part with default ANSI units and sketch properties (things like horizontal call outs in stead of the weird ISO call outs that run along the leader lines). Does anyone know how to fix this?
You'll want to save a part template, an assembly template, and it sounds like you've already got your drawing template set.
1) Create a new part.
2) Change your Drafting standard to ANSI and your units to IPS.
3) Save, and in the save-as dialog choose Part Template as the file type. Specify the file name as desired (i.e. part.prtdot).
Repeat for assembly (.asmdot).
You'll also want to check that the paths you have specified in System Options for Default Templates are to your new part, assembly, and drawing templates in addition to System Options > File Locations > show folders for Document Templates.