Detailing > Annotations > Creating notes

Creating notes

Use the Create Note tool to annotate your designs, drawing sheets, and 3D markups. You can use this tool to create and edit notes. You can also project the note onto a sketch or onto a solid. Place the annotation plane on one layer and the note on another layer, then turn off layer visibility for the annotation plane to hide it.

To create a note

1   Select the Create Note tool from the Annotation ribbon group in the Detailing tab.

Mouse over the faces of your design to preview the eligible annotation planes. (In Sketch and Section mode, the sketch grid defines the annotation plane.)

2   Click a face to create the plane on which to place the note.

To create an annotation plane for a cylindrical face, select the cylinder's axis.

If you need to change the annotation plane, right-click and click Select New Annotation Plane from the context menu. Then right-click the new place and click Set As Annotation Plane.

3   Click to place the note on the plane.

4   Enter the text of the note.

Click in the mini-toolbar to insert a symbol into your note at the cursor location.

Click in the mini-toolbar to insert a dynamic field. Dynamic fields include current values from a variety of properties.

You can format the note text, and enter the text by cutting, copying, and pasting the text from other notes or dimension annotations.

5   Adjust the orientation of the note by dragging the rotation handles.

To create a note field

1   Click within the text of the note and place the cursor where you want the field to appear.

2   Right-click to display the mini-toolbar.

3   Click in the mini-toolbar to display the Insert Field window.

The Fields tab displays the properties available for insertion. (Document properties are those that appear in the Properties panel when you click the top-level design in the Structure tree.)

4   Select a value from the Category drop-down to filter the properties displayed in the Fields list.

If you click Selected Object, you can click any object in the Design window or Structure tree to make its properties available.

If you select Formula, you can enter an expression, and include any numeric fields within the expression.

5   Click a property in the Fields list.

6   Click the Format tab to format the text within the field.

The formatting options are based on the type of the property value. For example, strings can be formatted with upper case, lower case, initial capitals, or title case.

7   Click OK to insert the formatted, dynamic field into the note at the cursor location.

If the field is empty, check to make sure that the property you selected has a value by selecting the appropriate object and viewing the Properties panel.

To copy a note

Ctrl+drag a note with the Move tool to copy it.

To edit a note

1   Select the note to move, size, or rotate it.

To move the note box, mouse over the edge of the box until the cursor changes to , then drag the note.

To size the box containing the note, drag the handles of the note box (the white circles).

To rotate the note, drag the rotation handle (the green circle). Press Shift to snap to angular increments.

2   Select the text of the note to reformat it.

Click a field to edit it. Changing the value of a string also changes it in the Properties panel.

3   Modify the note's properties in the Properties panel. Modify the:

• Space property to set the size of the note. Select Model Space to size the text based on the actual measurements of the objects in your design. Select View Space to size the text based on the view of the design in the Design window.

• Flagnote property to create a border around the note. Select a shape from the drop-down. Enter a value in the Minimum width property to prevent the flag from resizing automatically to fit the content of the note.

To display the text of an annotation and hide the plane

1   Create two layers, one for notes, and one for the annotation planes.

2   Place the note on one layer and the annotation plane on another layer.

3   Turn off the visibility of the layer that contains the annotation plane.