Andrew Moore. May 2015

AM-004/5/2015

Saving a copy in SolidWorks

Because of Parametric linking in SolidWorks you can sometimes inadvertently make a copy of a file

to produce a revised version of your component and still change the original. Obviously this is not

what you intended but there is a way to create a ring fenced copy of your model so this never

happens.

Let us assume we have a component and a drawing file which we want to use to create a revision

which we will call “Rev A”.

We can open the files as usual but we will “save as” to create our copy to revise.

When we open the Save as command we see this window

In the lower left area we have options for save as

Andrew Moore. May 2015

By default the basic Save as is selected but we need a more advanced version: if you wish to save

and open our Rev A version we should use “Save as copy and open”. If we wish to use the original

we should choose “Save as copy and continue”.

In this scenario we want to change the model to get Rev A so will use Save as copy and open.

We will also check include all referenced components which in this case will include both the

drawing and the model it is created from.

Now click on the advanced button

This window opens the “Save as with references” window

Andrew Moore. May 2015

Near the top left the referenced files are listed. We will select both of these to make copies of both

files. Hold down Ctrl and click on both names in the white boxes

We now need to decide if we wish to add a prefix or a suffix. We will keep the original part name

and add the suffix “Rev-A”. So in the lower left corner select Add Suffix and type in Rev-A

Now click on the Apply button

The file names turn green and have Rev-A added to them.

Now click on Save all in the lower right corner and you have completely ring fenced copies of your

files that will not change the originals.