How to copy Autodesk Inventor Parameters between documents.

The ability to copy parameters between Inventor documents has been a long standing request of the Inventor user community.

Well, from Inventor 2011 we have a solution. We can now export parameter name and value pairs from a Part, Assembly or Drawing and import them into another document. You can find the Import and Export tools under the ‘Manage’ tab on the ‘Parameters’ panel.

Note: In an Assembly file, you can also find the import and export parameter tools under the ‘Assemble’ tab on the ‘Manage Panel’.

Exporting Inventor Parameters

To export a set of Parameters, click on the fly out at the bottom of the panel and choose ‘Export to XML’. This will output your entire set of parameters e.g. Model, reference and user – to an XML file.

You will be prompted to save the XML file with a name and location of your choice. To filter the list of Parameters that you wish to export, first open the parameters manager and check the box in the ‘Key’ column, next to the parameter that you wish to export.

Next – export the parameters as before, but this time when the ‘Export to XML’ file save dialog pops up, click on the ’Options’ button. You can now chose to export only Key parameters. This image shows the Exported XML file opened in XML Notepad.

Importing Autodesk Inventor Parameters

To Import a set of parameters click on the fly out and pick ‘Import from XML’. Browse to the XML file that you wish to Import from and click on ‘Open’.

Note: There are a few things about importing parameters that you should be aware of.

• If there are no parameters in your new file, the imported parameters will be imported as ‘User’ parameters, no matter what kind of parameter they were in the original file.
• If there are parameters in your new file that have the same name as the parameters that you are importing, the parameter names in the new file will not be affected. The type of the parameter will also not be affected. If it is a model parameter, it will remain a model parameter, but the value of the parameter in the new file will be overwritten by the value of the parameter that is being imported.

Note: You will not be prompted that this value will be overwritten – so take care!

The value of reference parameters will not be overwritten. It is possible to export parameters from any file and import them into any file. You could export parameter name and value pairs from a Part file into and Assembly file or from an Assembly File into a Drawing file (and Visa Versa).

Round up

While this isn’t as user friendly as a simple Copy & Paste from the parameter manager dialogue in one file to the parameter manager dialogue in another file, it does work pretty well.

There could be a useful aspect to having your company standard parameters saved out into an XML file that you could import when you need it, for example if you are receiving a part from a subcontractor or supplier.

I would like to see the Import and Export controls added to the file manager dialogue, so that you could see your parameters being imported in front of your eyes.

Thanks for reading, click here for more Autodesk and Inventor tips and tricks!