Symbol attributes

Symbols in a drawing often need additional information — a reference, a part type or a manufacturer, for example. That is what attributes are for: text labels you can attach to a symbol.

To add an attribute, double-click the symbol and click the Attributes link at the bottom of the Properties panel. A dialog opens where you enter the attribute name, its value and whether it should be visible in the drawing.

⚠️ Attribute names may contain only letters and digits, must not start with a digit, and should preferably start with a capital letter.

Positions of attributes

Want the attributes of newly inserted symbols to always appear in the same place? Set their position once and the program remembers it.

Here's how:

1. Insert a symbol into the drawing.
2. Drag the attributes to the positions you want.
3. Right-click the symbol and select Save positions of labels.

Library Configuration

Entering attributes by hand for every symbol would be tedious. That is why you can predefine attributes for whole groups of symbols at once. Use the menu command Tools - Library Configuration. Select a symbol group in the left part of the window; the right part has two tabs: Common attributes of the group and Attributes of individual symbols.

Common attributes of the group

You can leave the attribute value empty or fill in the most commonly used one. Every symbol inserted into a drawing automatically inherits the attributes of its group and of all parent groups. Attributes added to the "ProfiCAD Library" group therefore apply to all symbols.

⚠️ After making changes, don't forget to run the command View - Reread symbols so that the changes show up in the library.

Attributes of individual symbols

This tab shows all symbols of the selected group in a table. For each symbol you can directly fill in default attribute values. By default the Reference and Type columns are available; you can add further columns (attributes) with the Edit Columns button.