About Annotations

You can describe complete information with several characteristics for requirement generation by specifying the principal and complementary annotations. This helps manufacturing process in controlling the requirement generation in more specific way. You can associate or dissociate the complementary annotations with its principal annotation.

When you generate the manufacturing requirements, they are generated only for principal annotations and not for complementary annotations. The data of each complementary annotation is added in the attributes of its principal annotation. You can differentiate between principal and complementary annotations as below:

• Principal annotation
  • Any FTA dimension or annotation (semantic or non-semantic) associated with a user surface can be a principal annotation.
  • A principal annotation can have one or more complementary annotations.
  • A principal annotation can not be a complementary annotation of any other principal annotation.
  • When you select a principal annotation, all its complementary annotations are highlighted.
  • When a principal annotation is deleted, its complementary annotations are not affected. Only the principal-complementary association between them is removed.
• Complementary annotation
  • A dimension or a semantic annotation cannot be a complementary annotation.
  • A complementary annotation has the same user surface as its principal annotation.
  • A complementary annotation can be complementary to only one principal annotation and, in a tree, it is displayed as a child under the node of its principal annotation.
  • A complementary annotation cannot have another complementary annotation associated with it.
  • A complementary annotation may or may not have a positional link with the principal annotation.
  • If a complementary annotation is selected, its principal annotation is also highlighted.

You can apply text properties to text, dimension text, text with leader, balloon and datum target, as well as to text included in datum features and geometrical tolerances. You can also set the properties of an annotation text (such as font style, size and justification) either before or after creating the annotation.

To set text properties, select the text and, in the Object Properties panel, under Text Properties, choose the properties you want to apply. For more information, see Object Properties Panel.

When selecting a font style in the Text Properties, one of the available choices will be DS ISO 1.

DS ISO 1 is an Open Type font based on the ISO 3098 standard defining the text representation. It is delivered along with the app to ease the exchange of standardized documents.

The DS ISO 1 font supports new engineering symbols. You can access these engineering symbols from the Engineering Symbols node in the Standard Definition dialog box.

From a general standpoint, DS ISO 1 is a variable-pitch font, designed as Open Type with True Type format outlines definition. It is designed based on ISO 3098-5:1997, ISO 3098-3:2000 and Unicode definition (i.e. character codes are assigned in accordance with Unicode definition). In particular, characters' shape, box and dimensions are based on ISO 3098-5:1997, ISO 3098-3:2000 with lettering type CB vertical (regular) and slopped (italic).

The bold style is not defined in ISO3098. A thickness is defined for the Bold and Bold Italic styles, consisting in a 50% addition to that of the regular style.

DS ISO 1 contains Glyph covering the following Unicode ranges:

• Controls and Basic Latin
• Controls and Latin 1 Supplement
• Latin Extended A
• Greek
• Cyrillic
• Enclosed Alphanumeric.

For more information, see About Standards.

You can specify the horizontal position (X), vertical position (Y) and/or orientation (angle - A) of an annotation using the Object Properties panel under Position and Orientation. Note that the options available in Position and Orientation apply to annotations only (not to dimensions, for example).

To do this, select the text and enter the required values in the Object Properties panel, under Position and Orientation.

You can view different handle shapes and pointer representations according to the manipulation they allow. Using these handles you can perform the annotation's manipulation easily.

The following figure depicts an annotation with various handles:

The following table shows the representation of handles and pointers associated with various manipulations:

Manipulation	Handle Representation	Preselection Pointer	Manipulation Pointer
Translation along a direction
Free translation
Rotation
Text insertion			NA
Text translation
Control point
Move	NA

Annotation Handles Display

You can configure the display of annotation handles based on whether there is annotation selection or text edition. You can also configure the transparency level of the handles depending on whether the pointer is over a handle or not. For more information about configuring the display of handles, see Handles.

The following table lists the default values for display of handles:

Handle	Representation	Selection	Text Edition
Rotation		Displayed	Displayed
Stretch text		Displayed	Displayed
Resize text		Displayed	Displayed
Slide Text		Displayed	Not displayed
Resize leader attachment		Displayed	Not displayed
Move leader anchor point		Displayed	Not displayed
Move leader		Displayed	Not displayed
Indicate a moveable datum		Displayed	Displayed

The display of handles can be different depending on whether the pointer is over a handle or not, as explained in the following table:

When the pointer is...	What happens...	How it looks
not over any annotation handle	handle's representation is transparent.
over the annotation representation itself	handle's representation is transparent, but the annotation text box is highlighted.
over a handle	handle's representation becomes solid.

Notes:

• The transparency level of handles representation changes between the transparency level defined in the options and the solid state depending on whether the pointer is over a handle or not.
• All the handles get hidden as you click on any one of them. They remain hidden throughout the manipulation process and become visible again as the manipulation ends.

You can position an annotation with respect to another annotation on a specific point (attachment point) at its anchor position.

The attachment points are visualized when you move the pointer over the reference annotation during the annotation creation. The nearest attachment point is highlighted in blue indicating that the annotation can be positioned on it if that point is selected. Once it is selected, the annotation is positioned on it and all the attachment points disappear.

The following types of annotations can be positioned associatively:

• Text
• Balloon
• Datum Target
• Table

The following types of annotations can be used in associative annotation positioning:

• Text
• Balloon
• Datum Target
• Datum Feature
• Table
• Coordinate Dimensions

The attachment points where an associative position can be created depend on the frame type of the annotation. The following table depicts some of the frame types of annotations and their attachment points:

Type of Annotation	Type of Frame	Attachment Points
Text	No frame Rectangle Circle Triangle
Balloon	Circle
Datum Feature	Square
Datum Target	Scored circle	The datum target has four attachment points from the circular frame and two additional attachment points available in the datum target upper compartment and lower compartment. The attachment points of upper and lower compartment are used to attach the leader anchor point of an annotation.
Table	Rectangle

You can lock annotations for editing using a dedicated option available on various annotations. You can also control the access to this option thereby making it impossible to unlock the locked annotations.

To lock an annotation to prevent its modification or editing, right-click it and select Properties > Text tab and select the Lock Editing check box and click OK. For more information, see Text Tab.

The following annotations can be locked for editing:

• Texts (including 2D component instances)

  Modifiable text of a 2D component has the same Lock Editing value (locked or unlocked) as that of the reference text in the 2D component. However, you can change this value in the 2D component instance, if required.

• View texts
• Table cells (but not the table object itself)
• Balloons
• Datum feature
• Datum target
• Geometrical tolerance
• Roughness symbol
• Welding symbol

When you right-click an annotation and select Properties > Text tab and select the Lock Editing check box, the annotation is locked. Afterward, it is impossible to edit the annotation character string by any means, that is using the context menu, double-clicking the annotation, etc. In this case, the following actions take place:

• The Text Editor dialog box does not appear.
• If you try to edit the annotation, an error tooltip appears informing that the editing of the annotation has been locked and it can be unlocked using the Properties > Text tab.
• If the access to lock editing property has been disabled, the message appears informing that the editing has been locked and only an administrator can unlock it.
• The Replace is not available in the Replace dialog box or in the Find dialog box, when you press Ctrl+H when a string to be replaced has been identified in a locked annotation.