Making changes to an assembly during the design phase usually involves adding and positioning new components, changing the positions of previously placed components, or modifying relationships that may cause adaptive parts to resize or change position.
When you open an assembly whose components have changed, a message asks if you want to update. If you answer Yes, the assembly components are recalculated to reflect changes you or others have made to individual parts or subassemblies since last opened the file. If you answer No, you can use update or refresh later.
When you save edits
- In the Application menu, click Save or Save Copy As to save edits to an assembly. You are also prompted to save any changes to components. Save Copy As saves edits in the newly named and saved copy, but you are still working in the original file.
- While editing a part in place , use Save to save changes to the part file. When working at the assembly level after editing a part, you are prompted to save changes when you save the file or quit the assembly.
- Click
SaveSave All to save all open files. You are prompted for file names as needed. This is a convenient way to make sure you save all changes during a work session.
Where you save edits
When you choose Save or Save All, changes to files are applied to the original files in home folders. If you enter a different file name or folder, a new file is created to store the changes, and the original file is unchanged.
- For new files, select Save to assign a descriptive name and, if desired, a different folder.
- For existing files, select Save to save the file with the same name in the current folder.
- Use Save Copy As to take a snapshot of the current state of the assembly and save it in a file with a new name. Unlike the Windows Save As command, Save Copy As returns control to the original file, not the copy.
The file types used in the assembly design process have the following extensions:
- Changes made to individual parts are saved in files with the extension .ipt.
- Changes made to relationships between components in an assembly are saved in the assembly file, with the extension .iam.
- The default design view representation and any named design view representations you create are saved in a design view representation file with the extension .idv. Usually, the file name is the same name as the assembly file.
Guidelines for using Undo
Use Undo to try new things without some of the risk:
- Undo reverses actions taken during the current editing session, starting with the most recent. You can undo changes made to multiple open files (also in reverse sequence). You can undo actions after you save a file, but the saved version is intact. (You cannot undo past the last point the file was saved.)
You must save the file again to preserve the current state of the assembly.
- Use caution to avoid accidentally undoing a change you intend to save. If you are not sure you want to keep a change, use Save Copy As to create a snapshot of the file before you change it.
- When you close and reopen a file, the Undo sequence starts over. You cannot undo any changes made before you closed the file.
When to use Defer Update
Often, you want to see the results of changes to component positions and edits as soon as they are made. However, you may want to delay update when you are placing a large number of constraints, for example. When Defer Update is on, you can place many constraints, but the components will not reposition until you click Update.
- Click Update to regenerate only the active part or subassembly and its dependent children.
- Click Global Update when one or more components have significant changes. All components, including the top-level assembly, update.
The Defer Update option is set on the Assembly tab of the Application Options dialog box.
Navigate in browser after editing
In large assemblies, you might be editing a component deeply nested in the browser (assembly tree). You can quickly move to a higher-level assembly when finished editing.
Choose one of the following to specify where you want to continue editing. On the Quick Access toolbar:
- Click Return to return to the previous editing environment.
- Click Return to Parent to return to the parent component in the browser.
- Click Return to Top to return to the top-level assembly in the browser.