My method of inserting symbols into drawing notes

chrisjh777

 I read a recent comment in the Onshape drawing discussion area, where the writer asked how another user inserted the surface finish symbol.

I thought I’d share the method I use to insert symbols, such as Greek and Mathematical, into my drawings.  I have been doing this for years in Solidworks, because the standard Solidworks Symbol Library is somewhat limited.

I created a Word Document and inserted all my commonly used symbols.  When I am drafting, I always keep this document open.  If I need to insert a symbol, I simply switch to the open document, select and copy the symbol, then paste it into the drawing Note Text Box where I need it.

At any time, I can add to the document, any new unusual symbols.  The symbol document grows with my needs.

I have attached copies of my current symbol document in  .docx format.  For those using Open Office, I tried to attach a copy in .odt format but was "not allowed".

Note that Notepad does not support some of the symbols, so don’t waste your time converting to a .txt format.  Same for .pdf files.

I use a laptop for most of my CAD/CAM activities and, for some reason, laptop keyboards do not support, like PCs, the insertion of “Alt xxx” inputs.  So I was forced to adopt this strategy.

I hope this idea is of use to others.

nav

Hi @chrisjh777 thank you so much for sharing this method, for me it does not work unfortunately when copying and pasting the symbols I get weird characters. 

chrisjh777

OK,

Sounds like I need to give this some more thought and testing in Onshape.  I have only used this method in Solidworks.

chrisjh777

OK,

I created a test Onshape drawing and tried to insert my commonly used Greek Letters and symbols into Notes such as:

Ø  Ω  °  π  ↓  Δ  ±  ≤  ≥  ↑ λ  μ σ √  ≠  ≡  ∑  ∫  ≈  ₏

⅓  ⅔  ⅛  ⅜  ⅝  ⅞  ¼  ½  ¾

•  

That which works in Solidworks does not work in Onshape  Drawings  

Funny that they insert fine in this post.

It was a good idea.  I guess we will have to wait for more progress.

Narayan_K

We can insert symbols in Onshape by pressing shortcut keys from key board.i.e "Alt+0216" for "Ø"

chrisjh777

Narayan_K said:

We can insert symbols in Onshape by pressing shortcut keys from key board.i.e "Alt+0216" for "Ø"

This approach works fine for those with PCs with a separate keyboard, but not for those with Laptops with integral keyboards.

viru

@chrisjh777 ,Thanks for sharing your method. User can also insert symbol in onshape by shortcut key from key board as suggested by @Narayan_K. You can find below attachment for shortcut key.

mlaflecheCAD

To add to the above discussion, there are three quick shortcuts that can also be used on most OS setups while creating notes or adding modifiers to dimensions:

%%c      diameter
%%d      degrees
%%p      plus/minus tolerance

I have tested this on Mac OSX with Chrome, but anticipate that it should work across the board on the browser versions of Onshape.

chrisjh777

mlaflechecad said:

To add to the above discussion, there are three quick shortcuts that can also be used on most OS setups while creating notes or adding modifiers to dimensions:

%%c      diameter
%%d      degrees
%%p      plus/minus tolerance

I have tested this on Mac OSX with Chrome, but anticipate that it should work across the board on the browser versions of Onshape.

Hi Mike,

I found these shortcuts and have been using them. 

I tested all combinations of %%x with all letters of the alphabet in the hope to find other symbols that may be useful.  Only the 3 that you mentioned above work. 

I am curious to know the origins of the %% nomenclature.

chrisjh777

I am happy to report that I tested the latest iteration of Onshape and all these symbols insert fine.  Many thanks to the Onshape team for working on this.

I successfully copied an inserted all of the Greek Symbols and Fractions as a note into Sheet 3 of the drawing in this test document.

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/164261ef912d5f9d4cce106e/w/cddc1ed294517ac1da648079/e/1a6715e0a949384e09924203
 

ian_alexander202

The easiest way is to add a note to your drawing and all the common symbols are there, you can also cut and paste into BOM's