Welcome to the CADSTARguys Blog - Information, hints, tips and my waffle on the CADSTAR Printed Circuit Board design suite.

Please note that all names used are completely fictitious and any thing written is my own personal opinion or knowledge and not related in any way to either my employers or their customers (or Zuken).
Also this is not a replacement for proper Maintenence/support and you should read the help files before asking anything techy:).

Wednesday 18 May 2011

Importing a sheet border via DXF from another system.

Someone asked on one of the web forums how to import his sheet borders in from another piece of software where they have been saved as a DXF.

I'll type a response here...
It is easy in CADSTAR if you understand what it is you need to do.


I take it that the border you want to bring into CADSTAR will be used on both schematic and PCB designs.

So what you are going to do is make a "Document symbol", this can be used on all designs.
This is NOT a schematic symbol or PCB Component.
And the number of designs I have seen where they have been redrawn or copied and pasted in every time is huge!

Use "File\New" and start a new "Document Symbol" then use "File\Import File" and change the type of file to DXF.

Browse and select your DXF file (it cannot be open in another program at the same time).

You will need to make a mapping file, this is used to tell CADSTAR what layer in the DXF objects are that need importing into CADSTAR.

Select"Create Map" and name it, then select "Edit Map" and select the units the DXF was drawn in, what layer the figures of your sheet border are on for the "outline" and what layer the text is on.

If they are on the same layer, not to worry you just run this twice and change it in the mapping file.

Do some measurement checks to ensure that you have chosen the correct units/scale.

Then when all done, tidy it up if needs be, set the thickness of the lines (if any lines do not appear, check your assignments for any of zero size) also be aware that the fonts used in the DXF may not match those that are installed and available in CADSTAR so you may have to change the text codes.

Once all is OK then save it into your documentation library for use on your drawings.

To use it simply use Add\Doc Symbol from the menu, select it, choose the scale (usually 1:1) and add it.

N.B. the DXF must not contain blocks or splines - plain old text and polylines only.

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