Tutorial: Tag your features

In this article, I’m covering a topic of tags, which I briefly addressed in my recent breakout session at the SWUGN Summit – San Jose.  What are tags?  This website has tags that are assigned to most of its articles.  Not just blogs, but many types of documents have tags which are used to increase searchability and enhance content filtering.  SolidWorks added tags functionality in SolidWorks 2008.  In SolidWorks, tags can be assigned to documents and features.

Instructions to assign tags to features:

1. In the view pane or FeatureManager design tree, select any feature.
2. In the status bar, at the lower right of the SolidWorks window, click the Tags icon. 
3. Tags box will pop up near the icon and will include any tags already in use for that feature.
4. Type new tags into that field, separating each with a semi-colon.  (Once a tag is typed, it is applied.  There’s no “OK” button to accept.)
5. (Click on the Tags icon again to close the Tags box.)

Then, to use the tags:

1. In the filter field (at the top of the FeatureManager design tree), type-in the desired tag.
2. This will automatically filter out all features which do not contain that tag nor match that text in their description.
3. To redisplay all features, click cancel x in the filter field.

Author: fcsuper

As a drafter, mechanical designer and CAD engineer, I've been in the mechanical design field since 1991. For the first 8 years of my career, I was an AutoCAD professional. I utilized AutoLISP and many other AutoCAD customization features to streamline drafting activities for 6+ drafters and designers. I authored several custom functions, one of which was published in the March 1997 issue of Cadalyst Magazine. Since 1998, I've been used SolidWorks non-stop. I've worked to utilize the SolidWorks' user environment to simplify drafting and design activities for 20+ engineers. I've created this website to provide current information about SolidWorks from a variety of contributors. More recently, I am now employed by Dassault Systemes as SOLIDWORKS Sr. Product Definition Manager to improve drawing, annotation and MBD related areas. View all posts by fcsuper