Let me explain the situation to you; I work in a company that manufactures agricultural machinery, and we use Solidworks to design our machines as well as make our layout plans.
However, there are two of us in the design office and we don't have the same version of SW, which means that only one of us can take care of making the layout plans. It also annoys our salespeople who would like to have access to these files if they need to make changes without disturbing us.
Do you know of an easy-to-use software that would allow us to do this? Knowing that we already have schematic blocks following the machines with their configurations saved in SW to make these plans, so we would need a software that allows us to recover them, or at least to be able to remake "blocks" and save them.
hello, if you are going to take another software, you might as well take an update of the 2nd workstation under SW, right? (it all depends on the version)
Otherwise you have to work in dxf/dwg and if you have SW cds before 2009 included you can install DWG editor. it remains free at least ;) But of course it can't open above 2009, that goes without saying.
I agree with @Fuz3D: why bother with 2 different versions within the same company with all the problems that it implies? However, this does not solve the problem of salespeople who will need a license to use SW files. Do they need 3D or is 2D implementation sufficient?
See FreeCAD or equivalent which will be able to use dxf (for 2D) or step/sat (for 3D).
That's what we proposed in the first place but for the moment our boss "doesn't see the point", but I'm going to try to make a point with him so that he does it anyway, because it's really annoying at times to work with my colleague.
@FUZ3D: no pre-2009 cd unfortunately
@stefbeno: For salespeople, 2D is more than enough. After what I've looked at with the .dxf, I don't have the impression that you can save the different configurations at the SW (I may be wrong)
Don't forget that you have EDrawing available with each license, maybe it can be enough for salespeople. (unless I'm mistaken). or any other free viewer.
I thought about it, but you can't change anything about it. Because the desire of the salespeople is to be able to make changes themselves if necessary
For then a 3rd (floating) license might be necessary if the price is justified for your need.
But I go in the direction of the others, you have to have 2 licenses of the same year mandatory, the risks of moving files to higher version is too great. And possibly a 3rd floating license for salespeople, on the other hand it will have to be profitable.