This Pro/Engineer Tip (and our growing library of ProE tips & tricks) is here to help increase Pro/Engineer modeling and CAD design capabilities for everyone interested.  Enjoy the tips, and tell a friend if you like what you see.

Did you know you can have the same drawing open in multiple Pro/E windows at the same time?  I didn't either, but Madhusudhana of Satyam sent this tip, and I think it's pretty cool.

	Figure 1.  Starting a New Window

With Pro/E drawings, you can display several drawing sheets in different windows (or the same sheet in multiple windows) and cross from window to window effortlessly.  For instance, when you select text for formatting, you can select text from several drawing sheets at once to do the operation.  Very cool.

To open the drawing in additional windows, Select Windows > New (as shown in Figure 1), then enter the drawing sheet number you wish to view in the new window (Figure 2).  The new window appears with the selected sheet.

You can also add a new sheet to the drawing at the same time -- just enter the next higher number.  You can view the same sheet in multiple windows by entering the same sheet as currently displayed.  In this way you can zoom up on different areas of the drawing at the same time.

Figure 2.  Enter the drawing sheet number to view in the NEW Window

Selecting in Multiple Windows

You can select in multiple windows using commands in the GET SELECT menu, but keep in mind the following:

• You can select from any active sheet in any window.  For example, you can select details to delete from any or all the windows as if they were all one window.
• If you select an item in a window other than the current window, the system switches you to the selected window as active.  For example, if you select a dimension in a window, that window becomes current and you can modify or locate as desired.

Actions in All Windows

When you are working with multiple windows, Pro/ENGINEER simultaneously reflects changes in all windows of the same drawing for the following types of objects:

• Dimensions
• Notes
• Axes
• Symbols
• Datums
• Views

The system also simultaneously reflects the following procedures in all windows of the same drawing:

• Modifying the color of draft entities, cosmetic features, notes, or symbol instances
• Creating or modifying a draft entity
• Manipulating draft datums
• Deleting geometric tolerances

Useful ?

This way of working with drawings is really powerful in certain circumstances, though some manipulation of window sizes is needed to be most effective.  Text formatting, copying items from sheet to sheet and editing notes for consistency are some of the greatest helps.

Just for fun, I tried making a NEW window in model mode.  That also works if you wish to have multiple views and/or different zooms of the same model active all at once.  This is nice for viewing, but not as useful for working because you can only work in one window at a time.  Additionally, you have to repaint each additional window independently to see changes update.  Kind of fun none the less.

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