Clearwater, Florida, USA — “V8i training? We don’t have the budget for that.” That is a typical response that many CAD users and managers are getting today. There seem to be fewer engineers and drafters around and those that remain are needed to work on the projects at hand. Sending people out for training just doesn’t seem to be an option due to both the direct costs (including travel costs) and lost production time. Doing training in-house, while saving the travel costs, still isn’t cheap either and often consumes more valuable billable hours than management is comfortable with giving up. Yet, you’re still left with the nightmare of training users — as well as yourself — on the upgrade to V8i with all its attendant interface changes and new features. On top of that, you must integrate this new version of MicroStation seamlessly into projects and workflow without any flubs or hiccups. How do you get users quickly trained on V8i without losing valuable production time?

Have you ever had a similar “Catch 22″? LearningBay is an effective, affordable training solution that is available to your users 24/7 allowing them to get trained without heavy losses to your production schedule.

Only the Billable Survive
Delivering billable hours while producing high-quality designs is critical for both you and your organization. Fortunately, Axiom has a solution that will allow you to get the V8i training you need to keep both the quality of work and billable hours high. LearningBay from Axiom is an affordable, online, e-learning training solution that effectively trains your personnel on the specific areas of MicroStation that they need to learn or brush up on. They don’t need to waste time going over topics that they already know. And, they can do all the training without having to leave their desks!

What’s special about these courses?
They include “Learning Videos” where students watch the instructor demonstrate what is presented in the lesson pages.

Short on time? The course lessons are arranged in 30-minute segments to make it easier to get through a course on a daily schedule that won’t interrupt production hours.

Videos are included where the instructor expresses insights or tips relating to the lesson pages and entices viewers to move on to subsequent lessons.

With sample files and illustrated step-by-step exercises, students are able to strengthen their learned skills at their own pace, as well as explore freely without fear of compromising or damaging live project files.

Need a “paper trail” for all that MicroStation training you’ve done? LearningBay makes that easy because all the courses are in a Professional Development Hours format and include a course syllabus, course description, student worksheets, course objectives, a list of topics and a course completion plan.

Need an edge in getting that promotion? Upgrade your skills in V8i with structured on-line training that documents your every course completion to the satisfaction of most HR requirements.

Figure 1. To get this tip, click on “v” (video instructions), which opens a narrated video by MicroStation evangelist Mike Arroyo. Here he gives an animated instruction showing how the “Copy Manipulation” task is executed so you don’t make unnecessary copies. Multimedia features like these make LearningBay’s training courses in V8i very clear and easy to pick up.

The videos provide easy-to-follow instructions. For example, Axiom’s own MicroStation evangelist, Mike Arroyo, goes over the “Double-Click Icon” in Lesson 1 of “Manipulate Basics”. While using a manipulation command like “Copy”, Mike lets you in on the following tip: “Just double-click on an icon (works with most icons) and you’ll get a grayed-out icon [Figure 1]. Then, when you select an object to copy it, and once the object is placed, MicroStation automatically terminates the command so you don’t keep placing the same object over and over.”

LearningBay courses are designed such that beginner, intermediate and advanced materials are grouped into libraries. Each library contains related courses that cover that subject. For example, some courses included in the V8i Essentials FastStart Library are:

The MicroStation Environment — This course covers MicroStation interface basics such as the differences between dialog and settings boxes, how to dock tools and some dialog boxes along the edges of the screen, as well as the topic of when and why one would “pin” tools or boxes to the edge. These are just a few lessons in this course designed to make you even more indispensable to your peers, executives and your organization.

Interface Basics — There is more to the MicroStation interface than icons and dialog boxes. This course begins with the two types of MicroStation interfaces, dialog and toolbox, and quickly goes into task navigation. Learn how to efficiently move between drawing tasks, as well as master the Tool Settings box.

Drawing Tasks Part 1, 2 and 3 — Here are three courses written for those who need to quickly know how to draw inside V8i without the information overload. Each course explores key drawing tasks like how to insert drawing objects into the design, how to work with related tool options and how to measure distances, place cells or symbols and add dimensions to drawings.

Model Start — An introduction to modeling that shows how to create design files, how models are stored inside a single DGN, the two different types of models, as well as how to create, modify and import existing models.

Figure 2. Where do you find lesson terms and what the heck do those icons mean? Just going to the “i” icon (information page) takes you to the page which gives you all the terms used in an easy-to-understand layout so you can effectively apply your V8i tools.

By training at their own desk, on a schedule and pace that fits CAD managers and users alike, LearningBay makes the task of training far more convenient and with less expense than sending staff out for training. The training is always available to fit whatever level of expertise is needed and can be delivered whenever most convenient. This “always on” training means it can be accessed as often as users like, for review or refresher training, whenever it’s needed. “With no travel costs, no instructor costs, no waiting and no scheduling to worry about, this training makes V8i users billable faster and at a reduced cost,” says Mike Arroyo, Axiom’s world-renowned MicroStation evangelist and Vice President for Learning.

Figure 3. Clicking on the “n” icon (instructor notes) provides notes from the instructor in video format. The notes include tips and insights on the upcoming task. It is these little features that give LearningBay students an incentive to continue on to the next lesson and finish the course — to say nothing of Mike’s cool beret.

Call now!
For more information on browser based or on-site training, contact an Axiom MicroStation Consultant today! Call 727-442-7774 extension 2291, e-mail 2291@AxiomInt.com or visit Axiom on the Web at www.AxiomInt.com now!

By Rick DeWitt
You’re in charge of getting everybody on your company’s latest engineering design project up to speed and productive. The customer has supplied you with the cell library, seed files and standards that have to be followed. You open the V8 cell library and discover that there are over three hundred cells and they all use the old, cryptic, six-character cell names.

Figure 1. CellManager automatically creates a cell library notebook in PDF format — complete with a table of contents — resulting in ease of distribution and increased speed in finding the cells you need on any project.

You realize that the only way to get your drafters to find the correct cells, without wasting valuable production time, is to provide them with an easy-to-access, visual presentation of the cells in this library.

Cell Library to PDF in About Five Minutes
With CellManager, you could have what you need in about five minutes. How?

1. Start up Micro­Station V8 and open the cell library you want to document.
2. Start CellManager by selecting “CellManager for V8″ from the “Axiom” pull-down menu in MicroStation.
3. In CellManager’s main dialog box, make sure the open cell library is shown in the “Files:” field. If not, click the {Select…} button to open the “Choose Files to Process” dialog box and select your cell library.
4. From CellManager’s main dialog box, click Settings | Change Settings… to open CellManager’s “Change Settings” dialog box (Figure 2). Now, adjust the “Page Settings” to 25 models per page. Next, click on “Plot Settings” and select the standard MicroStation “PDF” plot configuration file and “ANSI A” paper size. (“ANSI” stands for “American National Standards Institute”. “ANSI A” is a notation for a paper size of 8.5 by 11 inches.) Click {OK} to close the dialog box.



Figure 2. CellManager makes it easy for you to create a page that will display up to 25 cells (models) per page. You can also choose from a variety of page sizes using the “Change Settings” dialog box.

5. Click the {Draw Pages…} button from CellManager’s main dialog box (Figure 3) to open the “Draw Pages” dialog box.



Figure 3. After selecting which cells to work with, the {Draw Pages…} button opens a “Draw Pages” dialog box that gives you various options for drawing, plotting and displaying your cell notebook pages.

6. Then, click the {Draw Pages} button on the “Draw Pages” dialog box (Figure 4) to have CellManager automatically generate the page graphics you will use for your documentation.
7. With the pages all set for plotting, simply click the {Create Plots} button (Figure 4) on the “Draw Pages” dialog box. CellManager automatically generates each page of the PDF and then combines all the pages into a single PDF file. Once the PDF file is created, an “Information” dialog box pops up giving you the exact name and location of the newly created PDF file. Your new file will have the same name as the cell library, but will have a “.pdf” extension.



Figure 4. The magic begins when you click on {Draw Pages} and the cells are generated on screen. Clicking {Create Plots} saves a PDF file of your cell library. When done, just click on {Display…} to view your freshlyminted PDF file.

8. Click {OK} to close the information dialog box and return to the “Draw Pages” dialog box.
9. Finally, click the {Display…} button on the “Draw Pages” dialog box (Figure 4) to open your newly created cell library documentation!

In about five minutes, you’ve created a beautiful, easy-to-use PDF file documenting all your cells (over 300 in this example) that you can easily distribute to your staff. How’s that for efficiency?

Want Cell Library Documentation Fast? Call Now!
For more information on CellManager or to obtain a free trial version, contact an Axiom MicroStation Consultant today! Call 727-442-7774 extension 2353, www.AxiomInt.com now!

Rick Sewell, beloved CAD ace, lives to help CAD users get their projects done on time. He really lives for this stuff. Give him a call and put him to the test.

If you want to impress your co-workers and superiors, then provide them with a 3D PDF that really shows your handiwork. (As a note, you will need a PDF viewer that can handle 3D PDFs such as Adobe PDF Viewer or BlueBeam’s Revu.) Here’s how:

1. Start by opening your sheet model and ensure you have your 3D reference attached.



Figure 1. It’s easy to create 3D PDFs from 3D references. Here, I have two 3D reference files that have been attached.

2. Go to File | References to load your “References” dialog box.
3. Highlight the reference that you want plotted in 3D.



Figure 2. Use the “References” dialog box to select the 3D reference file or files you want to plot in your 3D PDF file.

4. Click the little “Plot as 3D (PDF)” icon that sits at the bottom, middle of the “References” dialog box.
5. Now go to File | Print…
6. From the “Print” dialog box click on the “Printer” icon.
7. You’ll be prompted to name and save your PDF. Name it what you’d like, set the location you want it saved and then press the {Save} button to begin creation of your PDF.
8. Next, go to the location where the file was saved and double-click to open it.



Figure 3. Hovering your mouse over the image of the reference that was plotted activates a toolbar with icons that have functions that allow you to navigate your 3D file.

9. Use the items on the toolbar to navigate around your 3D file.

Want More MicroStation Know-how? Call Now!
For more information on cool tips and tricks, check out our LearningBay courses by visiting www.AxiomInt.com/microstation-training. You can also schedule a free demonstration about training solutions or talk with one of our MicroStation Consultants by calling 727-442-7774 extension 3530.

Send Us Your MicroStation Tips!
Send your favorite MicroStation tip or trick to MsTips@AxiomInt.com. We will give you full credit for the tip and your peers will look at you with reverence.

See how easy it is to import Excel spreadsheet data into MicroStation with perfect formatting using Axiom’s Microsoft Office Importer.

Fast. Powerful. Reliable

• Pasted data comes in as editable MicroStation text and line elements.
• Maintain your CAD standards by using the active file symbology or specific color, weight and line style when pasting data.
• Color and weight of pasted text and borders appear the same as they do in the Excel or Word document.

MicroStation alone can’t do these things, which is one reason you have trouble with your pastings.

For more information, go to Microsoft Office Importer.

Ed Mendoza, veteran CAD Professional and Axiom Learning Expert, provides tips from his storehouse of experience.

What if every time you had to work with MicroStation reference attachments you had a few tricks up your sleeve that made your work easier and could save you minutes or even hours of time? I’ve created ten free video tips that will show you time-saving tricks such as how to:

• Gray out your reference attachments to make your active file stand out.
• Apply 3D display styles to 2D reference views.
• Use selection handles to adjust your clip boundary and relocate your reference attachments.
• Correctly display both visible and hidden edges in 3D reference views.
• And much more.

Want to learn how to save time when working with reference attachments? Come join me and let me share some of my hottest reference attachments tricks with you in these short video tutorials. Just go to Tips.AxiomInt. com and click on the “MicroStation Reference Attachments Tricks” image to watch and follow along as I go over these ten tricks that can save you time when working with reference attachments.

Rick Sewell, beloved CAD ace, lives to help CAD users get their projects done on time. He really lives for this stuff. Give him a call and put him to the test.

Busy MicroStation users are always on the lookout for faster ways to get work done. Covered here is a simple way to speed things up using your Function keys.

Have you ever noticed that the row of keys at the top of your keyboard that start with “F” never seem to get much use? Well, it just so happens you can make use of those F-keys (Function keys) to invoke dialog boxes or commands in MicroStation.

It’s really simple to assign commands to the Function keys. You can use Function keys by themselves or in combination with other keys. In this example, I’ll show you how to load AccuDraw using the key sequence {Shift+F12}.

1. Go to Workspace | Function Keys…



Figure 1. “Function Keys” is the dialog box that allows you to assign commands to your F-Keys.

2. Toggle on the “Shift” key by checking it in the upper segment of the box.
3. Select “F12″ from the pull-down list.
4. In the “Action:” window, enter the MicroStation keyin command “AccuDraw Activate”. (See Figure 2.)



Figure 2. In addition to using the function key, you can also use any combination of {Ctrl}, {Alt} and {Shift} for a total of 96 different combinations.

5. Press {OK} to close the “Function Keys:” dialog box.
6. Now, try out your new trick by holding down the shift key and pressing “F12″.

Remember, you can enter any valid MicroStation keyin command you want. In case you’re wondering, MicroStation does publish their key-ins in “Help”. Go to Help | Contents.

Figure 3. Assigning function keys to the MicroStation key-ins that you use on a regular basis can save you time when working on a project. You can find a full list of MicroStation’s key-in commands by going to Help | Help Topics while in MicroStation.

MicroStation is the powerful CAD system that it is, because it can be made to work for you. Use this tip and get your projects done faster.

Want More MicroStation Know-how? Call Now!
For more information on cool tips and tricks, check out our LearningBay courses by visiting www.AxiomInt.com/microstation-training. You can also schedule a free demonstration about training solutions or talk with one of our MicroStation Consultants by calling 727-442-7774 extension 3418.

Send Us Your MicroStation Tips!
Send your favorite MicroStation tip or trick to MsTips@AxiomInt.com. We will give you full credit for the tip and your peers will look at you with reverence.

By Eiren Smith, Axiom Product Manager

It’s easy to grow accustomed to managing reference attachment settings completely manually, one attachment at a time. But when you need to make a single change (or multiple changes) to a lot of reference attachments in one or more sheet or master files, manually tweaking design files is inefficient, time-consuming and tedious.

From removing unneeded reference attachments to changing reference file paths and more, RefManger let’s you make the changes you need in batch.

One major source of reference attachment work is client demands. One client wants references set up this way; another client wants references set up that way, but you need the references set up yet another way to do the work you’ve been hired to do.

You may get files from clients or contractors with references that are not set up the way you need them to be set up. Sometimes you can tell the contractor to get their act together and submit the drawings exactly the way you need them. But what if you are that contractor? Also, even if it isn’t your job to fix this, how long can you afford to wait for someone else to get it right? RefManager makes changing reference attachment settings — across one, hundreds or thousands of sheet files — quick and easy.

Today I’m going to go over a frequently overlooked area of wasted reference management time: Detaching undisplayed reference attachments prior to a submittal. While working on a project, users often turn off the display of reference attachments when they don’t need them for the work they’re doing that moment, but they leave them attached because they may need them attached later in the project. When the project is complete though, many users need to detach the non-displayed reference attachments. Doing this manually can be a hassle and time-consuming unless you have RefManager, which can detach these specific reference attachments totally automatically! Here’s how:

1. Start RefManager from your Axiom menu in MicroStation. For “Action”, choose “Detach Reference Files”.



Figure 1. RefManager solves just about any reference file problem. For example, RefManager can detach multiple reference attachments in multiple sheets or master files, in one batch process — and you can control which reference attachments get detached.

2. Now push the {Attachments…} button. We’re going to tell RefManager to only detach references that are set to not display.
3. Pick “Advanced” in the Category list. (See Figure 2.)



Figure 2. The reference attachment filter allows you to very specifically define which reference attachments will be reported on or modified. This kind of pinpoint accuracy is part of what makes RefManager so powerful.

4. Set “Reference File Display:” to “Off”, which tells RefManager to only process non-displayed (Display = Off) reference attachments, ignoring all displayed reference attachments.
5. Push {Close} to close the “Filter Reference File Attachments…” box and return to RefManager’s main dialog box.
6. Next to the “Master Files:” field, push {Select…}. The “Choose Files to Process” box will appear. This is where you will make a list of all the sheets and master files you want to process. Your active file will already be in the list. If you don’t want to process that file, push {Remove All Files} on the button bar above the list.
7. Next, simply create a list of files. There are several ways to create a list of files. One of the easiest — and possibly the most popular — is to just drag files into the list from Windows Explorer. To do this, open Windows Explorer, navigate to your project directory and choose some of your DGN sheet or master files. Just drag them right into the list area of the “Choose Files to Process” box. You’ll notice all the files are immediately added to your list.
8. Once you’re done making your list of sheet or master files, push {OK} to close the “Choose Files to Process” box. Notice that the “Master Files:” field in the main RefManager box now says “” where “n” is the number of files you have in your list.



Figure 3. RefManager has an intuitive, easy-to-use dialog box for selecting which sheets or master files to process.

9. Now you’re ready to have RefManager run your “Detach Reference Files” job on your chosen DGN files. Simply push {Start} in RefManager’s main dialog box. Choose {OK} when the warning appears explaining that your job will cause some references to be detached and then RefManager will go through your list of selected files. When RefManager has completed its task, it will display a message telling you the process is finished. Push {OK} to close that message box.

When processing is complete, open one of your processed files and go to File | References in MicroStation. You’ll see that any previously non-displayed reference attachments will no longer be in the list, as RefManager has detached them. That’s all there is to it!

Call Now for a Better Way to Manage Reference Attachments!
For more information on RefManager, contact an Axiom MicroStation Consultant today! Call 727-442-7774 extension 3424, e-mail 3424@AxiomInt.com or visit Axiom on the Web at www.AxiomInt.com now!

By Rick DeWitt, Axiom Senior Product Manager

One source of upset between clients and contractors is the apparent failure of the contractor to follow an established CAD standard. Many times this occurs because some of the base files provided by the client were created using an old or non-existent CAD standard. Often, contractors add to these older files and include them as part of a submittal. The problem is: How do you verify that only the new work, added by the contractor in the current project, meets the CAD standard when all the older data, which they didn’t add and which doesn’t necessarily follow the current CAD standard, exists in the same file?

Now you can easily verify that any element created after a specific date meets your CAD standards using SpecChecker’s newest feature.

To solve this dilemma for MicroStation V8 and V8i design files, a new feature was added to SpecChecker, Axiom’s CAD standards verification software. The new feature allows users to accept or reject elements based on the modification date stored in every element in a design file.

For example, let’s say you received base files for a new project on 10 July 2012 and added or modified elements as part of your contract over the following three months. With SpecChecker’s new feature, you can create a rule that automatically accepts all elements that have a modification date prior to 10 July 2012, when verifying the design files for CAD standard compliance. In this way, only elements you added or modified in the design files will be tested when verifying CAD standard compliance.

When verifying that design files meet the client’s CAD standards, SpecChecker can automatically ignore any elements that were added or modified prior to a specific date.

When verifying that design files meet the client’s CAD standards, SpecChecker can be set to automatically ignore any elements that were added or modified prior to a specific date.

On the flip side, if you are the client, you can easily verify that the work done by the contractor meets your CAD standards.

SpecChecker is known for its ability to perform CAD standard checks on design files based on “rules” that define a specific CAD standard. With SpecChecker, you can check large quantities of project design files in a batch process — or interactively — to locate any element that is not per the standard. Because SpecChecker can rapidly verify that your design files comply with a CAD standard prior to submittal, it will quickly pay for itself. SpecChecker has the ability to run in a batch process on many files at a time or can be run interactively to view and fix each violation encountered.

CAD Standards Verification Made Easy
To schedule a free, online demonstration or for more information on SpecChecker and other quality assurance software for MicroStation, contact an Axiom MicroStation Consultant today. Call 727-442-7774 extension 3428, e-mail 3428@AxiomInt.com or visit Axiom on the web at www.AxiomInt.com now!

By default, MicroStation loads with the title bar at the top, a row of pull-down menus below that, then rows of docked menus (or at least one row) and finally your MicroStation View window. Did you ever notice that the row of pull-down menus usually spans across half or less than half of the MicroStation interface? You’ve got half a row of blank space after that! Seems like a bit of wasted real estate to me.

The typical user has at least one custom pull-down menu and a whole lot of space-eating menus and palettes.

1. Here is a great tip to get that space into use and to free up a bit more real estate for your view window.
2. From the main MicroStation menu, choose Workspace|Configuration. This opens the Configuration dialog box.
3. Along the left side, set the “Category” to “All (Alphabetical)”.
4. Scroll down the list of configuration variables until you find “MS_MAINMENUDOCKINGBESIDE”.
5. Double-click on the variable or select the name with a single data point and press the <Edit…> button. This opens the “Edit Configuration Variable” dialog box.

Use the “Edit Configuration Variable” dialog box to change the value for the MS_MAINMENUDOCKINGBESIDE variable. Changing the value to “1” (as shown here) will allow you to dock toolboxes right next to the Main Menu.

1. Type in the number “1” as the value.
2. Press the <OK> button to close the Edit Configuration Variable dialog box.



Using the secret “no mouse required” method, you can easily select all files with a “.dgn” or other extension in a folder and, optionally, all its subfolders and then add them to a list of files in one fell swoop. The list is now ready to process by many of Axiom’s software tools such as FileFixer.

3. Press the <OK> button to close the Configuration dialog box. You will be prompted to save the changes made. Press <Yes> to accept the changes.
4. Finally, close and restart MicroStation for the change to take place.Once MicroStation has been restarted, toolboxes can be docked right next to the Main Menu.

Have you ever had difficulty importing text from Microsoft Word or tables from Excel into MicroStation with the correct text justification, tabs and spacing intact?

Have you ever opened a design file and discovered that one or more reference files are not attached due to messed up reference file attachment paths?

Have you ever needed to make changes to some text in hundreds of design files, requiring someone to open each file, one at a time, just to change a few lines?

Have you ever had a design file added to a project requiring you to now renumber a large portion of the files in the project?

All of these situations can be frustrating and time-consuming.

Is it frustrating not being able to import spreadsheet and word processing data with the correct formatting?
What do MicroStation users do when they need to import text or spreadsheets (large or small) into their design files with perfect formatting?

Just highlight and copy your Excel data (or word-processing text) to make it ready for Microsoft Office Importer to paste into MicroStation. The above is a simple example. In actual fact, Microsoft Office Importer can handle massive spreadsheets and documents (including those with very complex formatting).

Using MicroStation’s native Paste and Paste Special functions, users often find that their spreadsheets and Word documents become nothing like they used to be. Also, what if you need to paste a bill of materials (or a schedule) into a design file and keep a link to the original spreadsheet? The handling is as simple as this:

Microsoft Office Importer is easy to use. Just click the “Paste” icon to paste the contents of the clipboard into your design file.

1. Open your Excel spreadsheet or Word document and copy to the clipboard whatever you want placed into MicroStation.
2. Load MicroStation and open the design file you want to import data into.
3. Microsoft Office Importer will auto-load and be ready for you to just press the <Paste Clipboard Contents> button. (Or if you don’t yet have Microsoft Office Importer, just give Axiom a call.)
4. Now data-click anywhere on the design plane to make your paste.

When you paste data using Microsoft Office Importer, all the data comes in with perfect formatting (even on spreadsheets a hundred times the size of the above). Plus Microsoft Office Importer does it all in one paste.

That’s it. Problem solved.

Click here to get more information on Microsoft Office Importer or continue reading for more solutions to common MicroStation problems.

Messed up reference file attachments paths?
A customer from a large engineering firm once called me and said that over the weekend, the IT department had changed a server drive letter from “H:” to “I:”, which was no big deal to the people in the IT department. However, it was a big deal to my friend on the other end of the line, as this “minor change” broke every single reference attachment in all their projects — totaling over ten thousand design files. Also, for some reason beyond his control, it was not going to be possible to change the drive letter back. This story ended happily, however. I told him how to perform the steps below with RefManager™ and it solved his whole problem. Now I’ll share this solution with you.

To make a simple example, we’ll say that all your design files were moved from the “H:” drive to the “I:” drive, without any changes to the folder structure. Here’s how to fix that problem:

1. Open MicroStation and choose RefManager for V8 from your Axiom menu.
2. Choose “Modify Reference File Attachments” from RefManager’s “Action:” option button. The “Modify Reference File Attachments” box will open and the “Attachment Names” category will be selected by default.
3. In the “From:” field, enter the old drive letter, “H:” (without the quote marks).
4. In the “To:” field, enter the new drive letter, “I:” (without the quote marks).
5. In the “Apply to:” field, choose “Only Vector Reference Files”.
   

   In the example above, the user has told RefManager to change the drive letter stored in his reference attachments from “H:” to “I:”. The user can run this modification on multiple master design files, easily changing all his reference attachments in one easy job.

6. Press <Close> to close the “Modify Reference File Attachments” box.
7. In the main RefManager dialog box, press the <Select> button next to the “Master Files:” field. Then select the master files whose reference attachments you want to process. When done, press <OK> to return to the main RefManager dialog box.
8. Press <Start>. RefManager will replace “H:” drive with “I:” drive in any vector reference attachments in which a path containing “H:” drive is stored. Case (such as an upper-case “H” or a lower-case “h”) is unimportant as this command performs case-insensitive text substitution by default.

It’s as easy as that. When RefManager is done, press the <Display Report> button to get a detailed report of what RefManager did.

Now all your vector reference attachments that had a saved path containing “H:” drive (or “h:” drive) have been changed to point to “I:” drive. If it was any easier, it’d be magic.

Keep in mind the example above is a simple one. RefManager can handle all manner of complex modifications, regardless of why things got all messed up in the first place.

Click here to get more information on RefManager or continue reading for more solutions to common MicroStation problems.

Have you ever spent hours making repetitive changes to some text throughout hundreds of design files?
The need to find and replace various pieces of text throughout a set of design files is something that happens all the time for any number of reasons. Whether it’s making a date change on every sheet in a project or replacing the prefix on every part identification number displayed in thousands of cells throughout a large set of design files, it’s inevitable that changes will be needed. When you have to process lots of files or make lots of different changes, it can be time-consuming, tedious and error-prone.

Say you discover that thousands of text elements scattered throughout an entire set of project files use the words “Street”, “Drive” and “Avenue”. They were all supposed to have been abbreviated but they’ve all been spelled out instead. This “oops” could leave you with a time-consuming, profit-eating ordeal. Fortunately, there’s an easy and quick way to fix this.

Below are the steps:

1. Open MicroStation and launch Global File Changer from the Axiom pull-down menu.
2. Open the Modify Text custom dialog box by selecting “Custom|Modify Text…”.
3. Select the “Replace Text” tab on the “Modify Text” dialog box.
4. The <String Format> button can be set to either “Wildcard” or “Regex”. “Regex” is short for “Regular Expression” which is an advanced way for matching specific patterns of text strings. For instance, if you wanted to find the text strings “AG22Street” and “AG33Revision” but not “AG44Ramp” you could use a regular expression that would enable you to find just the first two and exclude the last one. This allows for more sophisticated search and replace functions to be performed in a single operation. For this example, we will just use “Wildcard”.
   

   The “Replace Text” tab gives you the ability to set multiple search strings and their replacement values.

5. Enter the text value you are searching for in the “Search String” field and what you want it replaced with in the “Replacement String” field.
6. Click the <Add> button to add it to the list of replacement combinations.
7. Repeat steps 5 and 6 for each search and replace combination you want to make.
8. After they are all entered, click the <OK> button and you will be prompted to save this list of changes. Save the file with any name and location you want. (This is so you can use it later if you like.)
9. You will be returned to Global File Changer’s main dialog box, where all you have left to do is choose the files you want to process and click the <Start> button to make the replacements you just defined to every file in the list automatically.

Just click <Start> and Global File Changer will replace every matching text element with the new replacement text in all the selected design files.

Within just a few minutes, the text replacements will be complete in all the targeted design files.

Click here to get more information on Global File Changer or continue reading for another solution to a common MicroStation problem.

How do you quickly renumber 237 sheets?
Imagine that your project is due out on Monday. Your project team spent the weekend putting the final touches on the job. All the 237 sheets have been plotted for the final check. Everything appears to be in order and the tension is starting to ease. Then all of sudden a blood-curdling scream resonates throughout the office. The sheet numbers are wrong. The sheet total is off by one on every sheet and every sheet number higher than 17 is off by one.

Now raise your hand if you would manually open all 237 sheets to edit text? That is just how it has always been done and it works just fine as long you want to spend the entire afternoon editing text in 237 separate sheet files. If you can modify one sheet in one minute, stay on task, not get any phone calls, and not make any mistakes, then we are talking three hours and 57 minutes just to modify the text.

With Title Block Manager, you don’t have to open up each design file individually to make changes to your title blocks. Title Block Manager allows you to quickly update your design files in bulk from changes made in Excel or Access.

You can break it up and give sections to different people to hurry things along. That could make it go faster, or it could just make things worse and increase the chances for error. Let’s round it up to four man-hours just for editing the design files. I don’t remember the last time that I had four hours uninterrupted.

Fortunately, there is another option. It takes about five minutes:

1. Open MicroStation and start Title Block Administrator.™
2. With Title Block Administrator loaded, click on the <Select…> button next the “Database” field. Navigate to and select your Microsoft Excel (or Access) database.
   

   You can quickly and easily renumber all 237 title blocks at one time.

3. Click on the <Edit Database> button on the Title Block Administrator main dialog box. This will open the database selected in step 2 above.
4. Increment the values in the “Sheet” column to accommodate the renumbering. Save and close the database.
5. Press the <Select > button next to the “Design Files:” field in the main Title Block Administrator dialog box. This will load the “Choose Files to Process” dialog box that allows you to select the sheet files for processing.
6. Set “Action:” to <Update selected files from database>. Click <Start>.
7. Check your e-mail, get some coffee and a few minutes later the job is complete.

Which scenario sounds better — the one that takes you four hours or the one that takes about five minutes?

Click here to get more information on Title Block Manager.

Putting it all together
We have found that MicroStation users often come across more than one of the above scenarios. This is one of the reasons why we made sure that all four of the products in this article are included in MicroStation Acceleration Garage, a cost-efficient package of nearly all of Axiom’s time-saving software products and e-learning courses.

Call now!
For more information on MicroStation Acceleration Garage, Microsoft Office Importer, RefManager, Global File Changer and Title Block Manager or to see a free, on-line demonstration of any of these programs in action, contact an Axiom MicroStation Consultant today! Call 727-442-7774 extension 1508, e-mail 1508@AxiomInt.com or visit Axiom on the Web at www.AxiomInt.com now!