SolidWorks 2010: Minor tweaks II

SolidWorks 2010 has made some minor tweaks to the control users have over balloons.

  1. In an assembly, when the user inserts a balloon, they can set it to follow the item numbering of a selected BOM under Balloon text (an added option for that field).
  2. The user can now add quantities to balloons.  These quantities are parametric so they update automatically as the quantity changes for the associated parts used within the assembly.  This was talked about in one of my SolidWorks World 2009 articles.
  3. One thing that has bugged me about SolidWorks for a long time is the fact that balloon size is determined by font size.  Finally, balloon size can now be set using an actual numeric value (such as .50″).  This can be a general setting in Tools>Options…>Document Properties>Annotation>Balloons.  Individual balloon sizes can also be directly customized via it Balloon PropertyManager.