Drawing Management PDF Creation from Solidworks and AutoCad

Hello,
we are currently running Epicor 9.05.702A and we are looking at how to create drawings and store on local network share and have them attached to the part rev. We are currently using a product that uses solidworks and autocad to print the file to pdf and then redirects that file to a save location on a network share. Right now the file get sent to a location from our Solidowrks EPDM software and then the Application opens the file in Solidworks or Autocad and prints the file to pdf. I am looking for something that can replace the need to use the native applications to print the file to pdf as it is not a good use of a standalone software license.

Thanks
Devin Draeger

I don’t understand the issue with using the native application to generate the PDF. Once the PDF is created and stored, it won’t need to be created again unless the drawing is edited, and you’ll need the native application to do that anyway.

Some vendors have a viewer or “lite” version of their software that is free for viewing. I suggest that you ask the vendor for that sort of software. They might also publish it on their website, where it can be found by Google.

You might also find this interesting: Print Part Attachments When Mass Printing Job Travelers - #11 by Bitman - ERP 9 - Epicor User Help Forum

Some random thoughts that may or may not help :slight_smile:

Qbuild have a product to integrate SolidWorks and Epicor, you may be interested in that. Have no idea if it can do what you need though.

We use Workgroup PDM and have it set to create a PDF of the drawing on checkin, you might be able to do the same with EPDM? We don’t actually use that pdf however and create a new one each time we produce a part using a custom application that uses SolidWorks to create the pdf.

You may consider keeping the drawing in EPDM as that is what it is made for, managing drawings, and make a customisation in Epicor to go get the drawing from EPDM on demand? That way you have a single source of truth on the drawings.

Brett

Did you mean you just want to enable viewing of the native CAD files?
i.e. eliminate the need to generate PDF files for internal users who wouldn’t normally have access to the CAD software?

If so I believe Solidworks and AutoCad both include CAD viewers.
I used a 3rd party viewer called AutoVue before, kind of expensive but has lots of features.
if you have the document management module you could specify which app will open your CAD file attachments