Create notes and store them as part of a model.
To start the Engineers Notebook, select a part in the window, right-click, and click Create Note.
When you add the first note to a model, the program creates a notebook. You can add comment boxes or more views to a note, or add more notes to the notebook.
You can attach a note can to an edge, sketch, feature, part, or other selection in the model. Each note consists of a comment box and a view of the model.
Examples of notes include design strategy, reason for a design decision, manufacturing instructions, or information from a test or FEA calculation. Notes can contain links to external files, such as spreadsheets, word-processing documents, graphics, or audio files.
In the Engineer’s Notebook browser, the program assigns each note a name and lists it in the order in which you created it. You can organize the notes as follows:
- Rename notes to provide a more meaningful label.
- Change the sort order of the notes to sort by name, author, date, or text.
- Drag individual notes to change the order.
- Create folders, and move notes into them.
- Specify a folder as the destination for all new notes.
History of design
Using the Engineer’s Notebook, you can save the history of development, or provide reminders for project designers. To maintain the history of a design, you can use several options to assure an accurate record.
Ordinarily, a note is deleted when the geometry to which it is attached is deleted. To maintain an accurate history, you can set the option to keep notes attached to deleted geometry
When you create a note, the note view captures the current state of the model. As you change the model, the view in the note updates automatically. To keep it from updating, you can freeze a view in the note. The view and its comment then serve as a historical record.
Note in part model
As you add notes to a part model, each note is listed in the part browser under the item to which it is attached. For example, if the note is attached to a feature, it is nested under that feature in the browser. Notes attached to edges or other items that are not listed in the part browser are listed at the end of the part.
Notes in assembly
Any notes that are part of a component that you add to an assembly are listed in the assembly browser under the added component. You can add notes to the assembly.
- Any note that you add to an assembly or an assembly component in the assembly environment is stored in the assembly file. It does not display in the part browser or the Engineer’s Notebook when the part file is open.
- If you add a note to an assembly component that is activated in place in the assembly, the note is stored in the component file. It displays in the part browser and the Engineer’s Notebook when the component file is open, as well as in the assembly file.
- When you add a note at the assembly level, a folder is created in the Engineer’s Notebook browser for each component in the assembly. Any note that was attached when a component was added is listed in that folder. Notes added to the assembly are listed in the main folder. If you double-click a note in a component folder, the Engineer’s Notebook for that component opens.
You can organize notes in assemblies in the same ways as notes in parts. However, you cannot move a note out of its component folder.