Notes In Title Block

Hello! I’m wondering if there is a way to have a text field in the title block (like a floating notes window attached to the border and title block) so that it appears on every page but the text can be changed per page and resized. I’m assuming this needs to be a standalone object, but wanted to see if there was another solution for editable text in the title block that can be different on each page.

You can create a text box in the title block area.

Basically you could start by adding the text box on the first page and then copy it and paste it to the subsequent pages. since you want to make the text different on each page, make sure it’s on an unshared layer. If it’s shared so it appears on every page, changes you make on one page will show on the others.

If you wanted, that text could be linked to external text or even a spreadsheet file that can be updated and/or relinked as needed.

I do this all the while. Part of my title block repeats on every page. That way I can keep the project name the same on each page. But part of it is unique to the page, so I can change the scale, say.

As Simon points out, for notes that would be the same from page to page, put those on a shared layer.

I made a quickie example of an option for using an external reference file. Here’s the spreadsheet. I only used one row per page of notes but you could certainly use multiple rows and columns if needed.
Screenshot - 11_9_2020 , 10_19_00 AM

This spreadsheet file could be used as a template for your projects. All the notes for a given project could be filled in here and then the new .xlsx file linked to via Document Setup>References in LayOut.

In LO the title block looks like this. Again, just a quickie so I didn’t put much in. The box and the page number are on a shared layer. The notes box is on an unshared layer.

The cell reference on page one:
Screenshot - 11_9_2020 , 10_23_39 AM

The cell reference on page two is B2:B2 instead.

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Wow Dave…that’s an amazing little bit of knowledge. I have my template setup with about 10 standard layers that I turn on/off depending on the page. Different content is on each layer and occupies similar space in the title block. I can manage page numbering this way with “A.1, M.2, E.3” and the letters are on separate layers. I can control standard text box content thru layer control.

Your method adds a bit more versatility that I’m going to play with myself.

Also wanted to add to the OP that each layer in Layout has a few icons to the right of the layer name. One of those allows you to turn the layer off/on, another asks if you want that layer to be unique to the current page or to be on every single page. This feature is powerful when you work out how it functions. I even think DaveR and I had a conversation about it a few months ago…don’t remember where that was or I would add the link.

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There is another way to do this without using any external reference, on shared layer.
The required variable text can be linked to the page with the AutoText entry <РageName>, respectively, writing the note text in the Page panel outliner as the name of each page.

I don’t know how long text you plan to place on each page, so I’m experimenting with the length of the text. I think 3500 characters is enough to understand that there won’t be such a long note in the title block, and that’s not the limit.

The disadvantage of this option is that there will not be a wide range of text editing options (for example, the exact position of line breaks, formatting of individual parts of the text, etc.), it is suitable only for relatively simple texts without a partial formatting structure.

I also edit the Page Name field (to change the Drawing Number). Its simple & effective.

I haven’t tried it for multi-line stuff or adding things like Scale… the concept is sound, but for me it wouldn’t work visually with our company titlleblock format…

A nice addition to LayOut would be an Autotext tag that can be assigned to a Viewport that shows “scale”… then it can be “tagged” to the drawing itself and dyanimically update if the viewport scale changes! This would be great for detail views.

Status (“draft” or “for review” or “for approval” etc) is another field I change a lot - though I should probably assign this to an unused autotext tag like “Company”

You can also create a new, your own AutoText entry.

I sometimes create a Scale if the scale of the entire drawing package does not change. I do not know whether it is possible to design it in such a way that it is linked to only one specific drawing.

Rather, I miss the PageCount entry for other types of documents and the reference to another page.

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