FreeCAD: Tutorial TechDraw workbench (3/3)

Update: July 18, 2021

FreeCAD 0.19

Editing description of the drawing

The template has pre-defined editable text locations. The editable location is highlighted in green.

Fig. Editable text locations — Editable text locations

Click on the location highlighted in green on the page to show the text entry dialog, and enter a description text. You can use Unicode characters.

Fig. Text input dialog — Text input dialog

When all description texts has been entered, the drawing will be shown as below.

Fig. The drawing that has description texts — The drawing that has description texts

You have now finished entering the all information. Switch the editing frame to hidden, confirm the drawing, and if necessary, adjust the position of each view or dimension by dragging it with the mouse. If it is the views, you can also adjust the position by directly specifying the coordinates with "X" and "Y" in the Data tab of the Combo View.

Fig. Changing Coordinates in Data tab — Changing Coordinates in Data tab

Fig. Hiding editing frame — Hiding editing frame

Exporting the drawing

Show the drawing page on the screen, execute [File]-[Export PDF...] in the menu. In the dialog that appears, select a folder to save the file, and click Save with the file name "Packing-gland" to export the drawing to PDF file.

Fig. [File]-[Export PDF...] in the menu — [File]-[Export PDF...] in the menu

Fig. PDF export dialog — PDF export dialog

You can display the saved PDF file with any PDF viewer.

Fig. The PDF file that has been displayed with Adobe Acrobat Reader DC — The PDF file that has been displayed with Adobe Acrobat Reader DC

Modifying the shape and updating the drawing

If you want to change some dimension values for the shape, you can change the dimension in the original 3D shape, and the change will be automatically reflected in the 2D drawing.

For example, edit the sketch "Sketch003" in the model tree and change the radius of the holes on the both sides of the shape from "6.5mm" to "3mm".

Fig. Editing sketch 'Sketch003' — Editing sketch "Sketch003"

Fig. Changing the radius of the holes on the both sides — Changing the radius of the holes on the both sides

Then the shape changes are reflected in both the 3D shape and the 2D drawing.

Fig. Updated top view — Updated top view

References

FreeCAD: Creating 2D drawings from a 3D shape
TechDraw Module - FreeCAD Documentation
"JIS にもとづく標準機械製図集第7版", 大柳康, 蓮見善久, 北郷薫, 理工学社, 2012.

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