I pretty much worked out how to name exported files (STEP, PDF and 3MF) with the help of your Version Control macro and some others I’ve been working on for several years.
The first exports a STEP (or PDF if a drwawing), the second a 3MF for 3D printing. They use these properties to name the output files:
-Part number (also file name here)
-Description
-State
-Revision
-Date
The macros are easy enough to modify so you can remove parts or change the property name to follow your standard.
Some interesting discussion here, but if I’m reading the original post right - he isn’t looking for a smart numbering system. Just a way to add more info to filenames or Descriptions, or some searchable/readable metadata without the use of PDM?
I agree everyone should be careful about trying to pack excessive info into part numbers. But it works okay to add about 20-40 characters of info to Solidworks filenames, after the part number. More than that just gets uncomfortably long for filenames, and in the Solidworks Tree.
If finding info is part of the problem, get a better search tool! The Windows search powers are pretty terrible. It doesn’t reliably find info in the Description property. It doesn’t even search filenames well (compared to something like VoidTools Everything).
I’d like to hear more from @DavidWS about the problem, and what kind of info you want to attach.
When you say: “We’ve also added a small amount of human-readable text to help engineering, purchasing, and production identify parts more easily.” Do you mean in that 17 character part number? Or in addition to it (in filename or Description)?
I don’t know if this will work with anyone else’s situation, but I keep mine simple. I just use a generic name that describes the part, followed by the project number. This file name isn’t used anywhere else, so it doesn’t really matter if it’s somewhat ambiguous. All notes and BOM’s reference custom properties.
I am also not using PDM, and am mostly a one-man show, so that likely would not work well in multi-user environments.
Lots of our files have a project # and code number at the end of it for project specific parts. The hard thing is sorting thru the 100’s of parts that have been created in the past to see if there is a good one that could be used again. 90% of the time I think we just make a new part and drawing unless it is a duplicate and we don’t even touch the drawings.
@Brian-M , did you ever find a way for Everything to search any other properties except Description? I find cramming all the info into Description very unhandy. I often need to search parts based on their Project, Type, Source or other properties defined in the part… Putting that into Description (or even file name) would be quite terrible.
Lots of great information here on lots of aspects on the subject… Thanks all for your input, keep it coming!
I (coded by ChatGPT) made a couple macros that help people understand what the models/drawings are from Windows explorer:
SaveAs PDF2 saves the drawing as a PDF as the filename of the drawing, concatenates revision to that name, adds the description as per the custom property in the first sheet, and adds a date stamp.
Description 2 Title takes the Description property and adds it to the file summary title… The ‘Title’ column can easily be turned on in Windows explorer and can be searched for directly in Windows (or Everything).
Hope someone else finds this useful… These are a bit basic and rough, so if there are suggestions, please bring them!
Absolutely minimise prescribed ‘intelligence’ behind numbers unless you only produce variants of the same thing / arrangement and can predict the future
Simple filename convention:
XXX.YYYY Brief Description.sldxxx
where XXX = project number
YYYY = component number
For component numbers, use
0000->0999 = assemblies & sub assemblies (so they’re grouped together and always sort to the top of file lists)
1000->8999 = parts
9000->9999 = scrap / tests / ‘what ifs’… etc… (so anyone else seeing anything starting with a ‘9’ is a warning flag… but data is still retained)
Never rename parts to include revision data; use metadata fields for this
Where you have multiple variants of the same thing, use config numbers after the component number… helpful if variants are controlled by a dim table for example
123.1000.0001
123.1000.0002 etc…
Obviously all advice company / industry / situation dependent…
you’ll always have your exported files as a record of what level something was released at, eg
123.1001 Rev01 Mounting bracket.pdf
123.1001 Rev01 Mounting bracket.stp
123.1001 Rev02 Mounting bracket.pdf
123.1001 Rev02 Mounting bracket.stp
etc…
And if you’re not using PDM, then save zipped a Pack’n’go at each major release if you really need to keep a historical record. PnG a top level assembly if you’re dealing with lots of parts. It’s not the prettiest, but you can:
save revisions of the PnG .zip just like any other file
un-zip it to a completely separate location to compare files if needed
#2 is clunky, but if you’re not using a PDM system, it does work as a nice time-stamp of where you were.
No. But I didn’t even know you could get it to search Description or Title columns. (I’ve just used Name, Path, Data Mod, Size.) How do you do that? I know how to turn them on in Windows Explorer.
Cool. “SaveAs PDF2” sounds a lot like how we set up our PDM tasks (which autogenerate PDF drawings on approval).
Date stamp and Revision stamp are included in your pdf filenames? Date seems redundant. I use date (PN_2026-07-09.pdf or .step) when it doesn’t have a Rev stamp - for work in progress to share and discuss.
