PC-DMIS Tech Tip: This Tech Tip show you how to create a custom report template using parts of existing PC-DMIS report templates. The template shown in this demo uses report objects from both the PPAP and Text Only template.
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In this video, I want to show you something brand new available in PC-DMIS 2019 R1. They've added a new edit tool to the Report Window. You can see it here. Just a little pencil there. This allows you to edit an existing template that is preloaded into PC-DMIS. We have our existing template shown here. We have CAD Only, PPAP, etc. What this new tool allows you to do is edit a report that's existing from one of the templates. When I click the button, I'm essentially in the custom report editor.
But I already have an existing report. I can change my report. I can actually drag dimensions around. I can even get rid of the header if I wanted. I have access to the Object Bar. That allows me to put like a text box, for example. Change the font size if I like, and just type in whatever I want. I can center that. I have all the tools available to me that come with the custom report editor. If I just highlight this object here, I can just center with this button here. I can do that with any object on the page. Just center right away.
I can add images. I can add a CAD image if I like. Over here on the Object Bar, just press the CAD image button. Drag a box, and there's my CAD. Other things I can do is I can actually add a new page. If I just press this plus symbol over here, I have a second page now. I can do analysis, a quick analysis on, say, a circularity dimension. You can see over there in my Edit Window in summary mode. Here's the Analysis Window button. Just press that. Drag a box. Then drag my dimension into the box. There's my analysis of my circularity dimension. It's kinda nice. Gives us a little more flexibility.
Prior to this, this was a read-only window. I couldn't change anything in this view. I had to actually open up a template to make the change which was a little bit of work. You really needed to know what you were doing. Okay. Once we're done in that, and we have it the way we like, we just save it. We can save it under a name if we want. Default name, Custom Report1. I can just call it "My One Off Report" and save it. I can switch back to the default template if I want.
When I want to recall that new report, I just open up the "Custom Report Selection Dialogue," and you can see it there. There's that one I just did, "My One Off Report." I can open that. Have access to that at any time. Another nice feature with this edit-on-the-fly type of tool is I can just remove things, just a couple things that I don't want in an existing report. I've had students ask me how do I get rid of the color bar. I had to tell them, "Open up the template, remove it. Save it under a different name."
But now what we can do is just press the edit button, click on the color bar and hit Delete and then save it. Then I can just call it whatever, "Cad Only No Color Bar." Here we go. Quick and easy. Lots of things you can do there. You can load images. You can do graphs. All sorts of things. It's freeing up our editing capability which was a little difficult in the past. But they've really come a long way with this tool.
I hope you found that useful. Thanks for joining me. And we'll see you next time.
