Part II: Building Intelligence into Your Parts
The icons in the Sketch Text PropertyManager are self-explanatory, other than the Rotated Text
option, which rotates individual letters, and not the whole string of text.You can use the Sketch Text tool multiple times in a single sketch to make pieces of text with
different properties. Each string of text has a placement point located at the lower left of the text.
This point can be given sketch relations or dimensions to locate the text.If the text overlaps in places, as shown in Figure 6.12, you can correct this in a couple of ways.
First, you can extrude it with the Merge option unselected so that each letter is created as a
separate solid body. You can also explode sketch text so that it becomes simply lines and arcs in a
sketch, which you can edit the same as any other sketch. You can also adjust the Width Factor and
Spacing settings.Starting in the 2010 version of SolidWorks, you can link the text to a custom property. This means
that sketch text can be changed with configurations. Configurations are covered in a later chapter.
The text used to extrude a feature can come from Custom Properties, which can be driven by a
design table or directly through the Sketch Text PropertyManager.Using Colors and Line Styles with Sketches
Custom colors and line styles are usually associated with drawings, not sketches; in fact, they are
most valuable when used for drawings. In sketches, this functionality is little known or used, but is
still of value in certain situations.Color Display mode
In drawings, you can use the Color Display Mode button to switch sketch entities on the drawing
between displaying the assigned line or layer color and displaying the sketch status color. It has
exactly the same effect in part and assembly sketches.
When you select the button, the sketch state colors are used. When the button is not selected, any
custom colors that you have applied to the sketch entities appear. If the button is not selected and
you have not applied colors to the entities, then the default sketch state colors are used.You can use sketch colors for emphasis, to make selected sketch entities stand out, or to make
sketches with various functions immediately distinguishable. Color Display mode only has an
effect on an active sketch. Once a sketch is closed, it returns to the gray default color for inactive
sketch entities.Line color
Line color enables you to assign color to entities in an active sketch. The Color Display Mode tool
determines whether the assigned color or the default sketch status colors are used.