Creating a Drawing Sheet in Autodesk Inventor

Creating a Drawing Sheet

• Use an ANSI (mm). idw file when creating a new metric drawing.
  • ANSI stands for American National Standards Institute.
    • ANSI has created drafting "rules" relating to line weights, text sizes, and dimension styles.
  • .idw is a file extension used in Autodesk Inventor for technical drawings.
    • .idw contains 2D drawings that are based on 3D models (.ipt or .iam files).
    • .idg is associated with Intergraph's ISOGEN software, used in piping design.
  • Ensure your drawing units match your model's units.
  • Save the file as YOURNAME_DRAWING SHEET.idw
• The Model Space will become Paper Space, including a title block and border.
• The Browser and Ribbon will have different features.

Page Settings

• Setting up the page is necessary, as the drawing sheet may look large initially.
• In the Browser, right-click on Sheet 1 and select Edit Sheet to modify the sheet settings.
• Set the Sheet Size to "A".
  • This changes the Height and Width to 8.5 x 11 inches, which is the US standard paper size.
  • Click OK.
• In the Browser, right-click the ANSI – Large heading under Title Block and select Delete.
• Under Drawing Resources in the Browser, click the plus sign next to Title Blocks.
• Right-click on ANSI A and select INSERT to add a standard A sheet title block.
• Delete the Default Border under Sheet 1.
• Under Drawing Resources, click the plus sign next to Borders.
• Right-click Default Border and select Insert Drawing Border to add a new default border.
• Set both Vertical and Horizontal Zones to None in the dialogue box, to remove numbers and letters from the border.
• Select iProperties from the Inventor menu
  • Add project characteristics in the dialogue box that appears
• In the Summary tab:
  • Add your name in the Author field.
  • Add TITLE BLOCK DEMO in the Title field.
  • Add SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY, OLUSEGUN AGAGU UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TEHNOLOGY, OKITIPUPA in the Company field.
  • Click OK to apply these settings to the title block automatically.

Creating a New Title Block

• It may be necessary to create a new title block if current title blocks are too large or have too many unneeded fields.
• Right-click the ANSI A title block in the Browser then delete it.
• Right-click the Title Blocks heading under Drawing Resources in the Browser and select Define New Title Block.
• Use the Sketch tools from the Ribbon to draw the shape.
  • Construction lines are for temporary reference and will not appear in the final product if Sketch Only is selected when drawing them.
• Add text with and without Properties:
  • For regular text, simply type the text.
  • For text with Properties, the text is enclosed in angle brackets (<AUTHOR>).
    • Values are automatically populated in iProperties.
• Draw the text with Properties by clicking the Text tool and set the starting point.
• Open the dialogue box.
• Under the Type menu, select Properties-Drawing
• Under the Property menu, select the relevant Option
• Click the Add Text Parameter button then click OK
• Use a height of 2mm for the regular text and 3.05mm for text with properties.
• Center Company and Title text in the opening with aligned text.
• The location of the text can be changed using the options in the dialogue box's top left corner.
• Click Finish Sketch, a box will appear to choose your title block name. Click Save
• New title block drawing can be selected from Drawing Resources, then insert it into the drawing.
• The iProperties will have automatically filled in based on the info added to the first title block, scale needs adding manually.