HOW TO CHANGE/SWAP TEMPLATE/SYSTEM OPTIONS IN SOLIDWORKS

27 Replies

I have heard this request many times so putting it up over here. The whole credit for this should go to Stefan Berlitz of http://solidworks.cad.de/ http://swtools.cad.de . Without his wonderful macro, this option might not have been possible.

Before starting the process I will strongly advice you to make a backup of the files.

  1. Open you part, drawing or assembly file from which you want to copy the Tool, Options> System Options /Document Properties Settings.
  2. Open the Excel based macro and choose the tab based on type of you file.
  3. In the Excel sheet, click on “Get. Options”. This will copy the Document Properties Settings for that particular file. Repeat same for System Options.
  4. Close the SW file.
  5. Now open you part, drawing or assembly file to which you want to copy these setting or overwrite their setting with these one.
  6. Go back to Excel sheet and click on “Set Options” for both System Options and Document Properties Settings.

Cool, enjoy with your new part, drawing or assembly file template.

Get the macro here: mac_copydoc.zip

Lot of thanks to Stefan Berlitz for sharing his macro. He has also explained how to use this macro in a much efficient way in the same excel file.

27 thoughts on “HOW TO CHANGE/SWAP TEMPLATE/SYSTEM OPTIONS IN SOLIDWORKS”

        1. Deepak Gupta Post author

          For higher versions of SOLIDWORKS, you can export the Drafting standard (Tools > Options > Document Properties) and save that to an external file. And in the file you hat to apply the changes, just import that standard file.

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          1. Kunle

            Thanks. I realised that yesterday after struggling with the macro for a while and then reading another comment below.

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          1. Steven Billeter

            We recently established standards for all drawings which before this did not exist. I need something that will take the information from a .drwdot file and change a legacy drawing to that new template. So I need the borders to change and everything from the entire document settings tab for a drawings. Most macos I have found can change the sheet format or load drafting standards, but simple things like colors of bend lines seem to be unable to be changed for legacy parts by a macro. Am I missing something?

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  2. Michael

    Hi Gupta,

    I am getting “run-time error ’76’ ” when I am trying to use your change sheet format.swp macro. My SolidWorks version is 2012 and my Mircrosoft Office is 2007 and my Visual Basic is 2005. Could you please help me out because I would love to use this macro

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    2. John Cline

      Did you get your question resolved? I’m also running 2012 and need to swap out templates on our existing drawings. Just want to be clear about templates (DRWOT) vs. formats (SLDDRT) it seems I can already swap formats from the document properties window—-I need to swap a custom made template—-Am I in the wrong place?

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  4. ittimin

    It all seemed to work fine in the excel doc, however the drawing border didn’t change in the drawing I was trying to update the template on. : ( Does anyone know why this might be?

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  9. Paul Marsman

    Now you can accomplish this same thing with Drafting Standards for Parts, Assemblies, and Drawings. For system options you can use the Copy Setting Wizard

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I'll be happy to know your views and opinions as this will help me to improve. You can share them as comments below.