Borders - Enhancing your schematic documentation

Borders - Enhancing your schematic documentation

Did you know that support for documenting your designs with custom borders has been enhanced in recent releases of DxDesigner to automate and improve the ease of use and accuracy in documenting your electronic designs.  Several Parameterized Properties  reflect the current design information on your border symbol.  Properties like @NAME, @SHEET, and @PRINTORDER are used to display the information specified and are adjusted using the Navigator for each schematic page.  Do you need a date stamp on your schematic?  Use @DATETIME and adjust the format to your companies specifications in Setup> Settings> Display> Date Format.

Because fixed embedded properties shipped with DxDesigner may not always meet your needs, our schematic entry program is flexible for you to utilize your own properties.  I’ve typically defined these properties uniformly with the same prefix.  In this case the word Drawing is used as a prefix to all of the custom border properties in the design.  I simply added the properties to the Properties Definition Editor, assigned them to the border page and then they can be universally adjusted by selecting and editing the Border Properties in Setup> Settings> Borders and Zones.  Specifying the properties in one place ensures their accuracy thoughout the entire design.

Notice the hashed outline (and red selected outline) below the information panel in the graphic above.  This is known as the symbol outline.  Often times the information pane is on the lower right of the schematic, but many borders have a symbol outline and are only selectable in an extremely small area on the lower left of the schematic, far from the information that is needed to review.  Extending the symbol outline across the lower portion of the border allows the user to select and edit properties locally without panning across the canvas, significantly improving the ease and accuracy  of editing.

Do you need more information?  Ask the DxDesigner Experts or explore on you own with  Technote MG529885,the DxDesigner User Guide and Properties Glossary for more information on how to optimize your borders in DxDesigner.

Gary Lameris
Mentor Graphics, Technical Marketing Engineer
Follow me on Twitter

More Blog Posts

Preparing Recommendations