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Mechanical Engineering Home >Info: Useful Links > ProE > tolerance

(Contributed by Chris Anderson)

Tolerancing a drawing can become very difficult as the complexity of parts increase. But not everything has to be complicated.

To add tolerances to a drawing from the Drawing menu, select Set Up this will raise another menu called Dtl Setup, choose Modify Val.

Note: you don't have to use vi as an editor. See the hint titled "Using your favorite editor instead of vi."

Now the vi window comes up. It is kind of hard to read because the letters are in a light yellow. But you can scroll down with the cursor using the up and down arrows. When you find Tol Display move the cursor with the arrows to the right and when you get to the place where it says No, type x (which stands for erase.) Now you need to Insert so type I then write yes.

To exit the vi window hit [Esc] and then Press [Shift] and type zz. Now you'll see all dimensions in tolerances in your drawing. You are now ready to choose if you want to keep all dimensions at +- format or to put it back to nominal notation.

For this as soon as you exited the vi menu it automatically brings back the Drawing menu. Choose Detail, and then click on Modify. The Modify Drawing menu is up now click on Dim Params. The Dim Params menu is up, go down to Dim Format. >From the Dim Format menu you can choose from Nominal, Limits, Plus-Minus, or +- Symmetric. Click on your preference and click on the dimensions which you want in the drawing.

When done with selection click on Return from Dim Params menu.

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