Customize Active Work Instruction items

When you create an Active Work Instruction (AWI), you add items to the document using the Insert menu, then use tools on the Visual Aid Tools tab to edit, move, arrange, and customize items.

Tip

If your Active Work Instructions often contain similar items such as company logo, BOM blocks, and other items, consider using an Active Work Instruction template to save valuable time when you need to create additional Active Work Instructions. See Create an Active Work Instruction template for more information.

The Visual Aid Tools tab has a variety of tools you can use to mark up and annotate text, drawings, shapes, and images in an Active Work Instruction document.

Tool	Description

Tool	Description
Text tools	These tools control font, font size, formatting (bold, italic, underline), font color, text highlight color, and text alignment. Note Depending on the kind of text you select, (Plain, Rich, or Smart), some or all of these options are available. For more information about Smart Text, see Use Smart Text tags in a template.
Drawing tools and shape options	Use the shape tools to add lines, arrows, rectangles, free-form polygons, and other shapes. To the right of the shape tools, there are options to control shape and line colors, opacity, and line weight. Select Show Shape Options to display specific options for each type of shape. For example, if you select an arrow, you can control whether arrows have arrowheads at their start and end position or both. If you select a polygon, you can specify the number of sides. Other options include start and end angles for arcs, X and Y coordinates, Width and Height measurements, and the corner radius measurement for rounded rectangles.
Alignment tools	When you select multiple items, you can use the Alignment tools to group, rotate, arrange, and align the items. For example, you might want to center a title above a BOM block or add callout arrows to a photo showing where parts should be added to an assembly. Use the Rotate tools (90, 180, and 270 degrees) to rotate a selected item. Use the Alignment tools to precisely align two or more selected items in relation to each other, distribute selected items by edge, center, top, or bottom, or match the height or width of selected items. Use the Arrange tools to arrange two or more selected items from front to back and to group or ungroup selected items.
Printing tools	The Printing tools include standard printing and printer setup options for printing visual aids. You can also select Show Page Area to ensure that all items fit in the document for printing. Note If you add a color-coded BOM block to a work instruction step, you can select the Print Labels button to print color-coded part bin labels for each selected step that contains a BOM block.
Miscellaneous tools	The Miscellaneous tools on the right side of the toolbar allow you to edit an ECAD image, display the connectors for one or more selected items, or link to a BOM using the Link To BOM toolbar button.