eDrawings Installation and Administration Guide

eDrawings® products are available for many installation types:

eDrawings Viewer

View and create eDrawings files and other supported file types. A free version and a fee-based eDrawings Professional version exist (See Licensing.)

A SOLIDWORKS installation includes the SOLIDWORKS Document Manager, SWDocumentMgr.dll. When eDrawings is installed on a system without SOLIDWORKS, drawings that include elements such as custom properties and tables may not be displayed with their most current data.

When you open a SOLIDWORKS drawing, you are warned about the missing DLL and given the option to install it. If you continue without doing the download, SOLIDWORKS drawings that rely on the DLL are marked with a warning that some of the content may not be up-to-date.

To use the file reference checking for standalone eDrawings installations, you must download and install the SOLIDWORKS Document Manager when prompted. The Mac OS® version of eDrawings cannot check file references.

eDrawings Publishers

Create eDrawings files from inside CAD applications. Publishers are available for these applications:
  • Autodesk Inventor®
  • CATIA® V5
  • NX™/Unigraphics®
  • Pro/ENGINEER®
  • Solid Edge®
  • SOLIDWORKS® The eDrawings Publisher is installed with the SOLIDWORKS application.
  • STEP/IGES/STL, DWG/DXF files, and Rhino formats

These applications are installed directly on the local hard disk drive.

Some CAD applications install the eDrawings application when you install the CAD application. Check your local hard disk drive for an installed version of the eDrawings application.

eDrawings and eDrawings Pro for iPhone and iPad

eDrawings and eDrawings Pro are available for the iPhone and iPad. You can download them on the App Store®. For more details, visit the App Store:

eDrawings for Mac

eDrawings is available for the macOS®. You can download it on the Mac App Store®. For more details, visit the Mac App Store.

eDrawings for Android

eDrawings and eDrawings Pro are available for Android. You can download eDrawings from Google Play™. eDrawings Pro is an in-app purchase. For more details, visit Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.solidworks.eDrawingsAndroid

Availability

eDrawings products are available at these websites or from your CAD application disk:

Licensing

Licensing is required for eDrawings Professional, which is the eDrawings Viewer with enhanced functionality. The primary methods of licensing are:
  • eDrawings Professional standalone
  • SOLIDWORKS Professional*
  • SOLIDWORKS Premium*
  • eDrawings Professional - network - SolidNetwork License (SNL)
eDrawings Publishers for CATIA and for NX/Unigraphics require licensing.

* When eDrawings Professional is installed as part of SOLIDWORKS Professional or SOLIDWORKS Premium, eDrawings Professional functionality is available if the SOLIDWORKS license has been activated or you are within the grace period.

Verification Codes

If you download the eDrawings installation executable from the eDrawings Download Check page, you are prompted to fill out the Product Registration dialog box and you are prompted for a unique verification code. If you try to install while your computer is offline, the Product Registration switches to the offline version where it generates a file that you can take to another computer that is online. You can email this form and wait for the verification code to come into your email. The code is valid for all service packs of the release.

The verification code is automatically added/included when installing eDrawings through the:
  • SOLIDWORKS installation media (DVD)
  • SOLIDWORKS installation manager
  • SOLIDWORKS administrative image

Installation Methods

You install the eDrawings application:
  • From the CAD application disk.
  • From the eDrawings website.
    • From a silent installation (see details below.)
    • From an administrative image (see details below.)
  • Via email (From an eDrawings file sent to you as an HTML, ZIP, or EXE file).
The eDrawings application detects existing installations and automatically upgrades the installation. Upgrades are performed within major releases. For example, if eDrawings 2007 Service Pack 1 is already installed and you install eDrawings 2007 Service Pack 2, the existing installation is upgraded. At major releases, you can only install as a new installation; upgrading is not permitted.

Silent Installation and Administrative Images

See Properties for a complete list of global properties.

Silent Installation

Silent installations install applications without the display of a user interface or dialog boxes by initially passing all the options on the command line. For more information, see the Windows Installer Help from Microsoft corporation.

To start a silent installation, use the /i and /qn options of the msiexec.exe command. Set the global properties for those installation options that you want to be different from the default values. For example:

msiexec /i "Msi_path" INSTALLDIR="C:\Program Files\your_folder" REGCODE=eDrawings_Professional_license_key ADDLOCAL=All /qn

Administrative Image

To extract the eDrawings.msi file:

  1. Open a command prompt in Run as administrator mode.
  2. Browse to where you downloaded eDrawings.exe.
  3. Run this command:
    eDrawingsFullAllX64.exe /s /x /b "C:\Folder_to_extract_msi_file_to" /v"/qn"
    For example:
    D:\My laptop\eDrawings\eDrawingsFullAllX64.exe /s /x /b "C:\eDrawings_install" /v"/qn"

An administrative image is used as a central location to install the eDrawings software. After administrators install the administrative image, users can run the eDrawings setup from the administrative image to install the eDrawings software. Administrators can also push the administrative image to another location.

Administrators install an administrative image from the command line by using the /a option. To get the default English install, type this at the command line:

msiexec /a eDrawings.msi

To install in a foreign language using the administrative image, you need to apply a transform file that contains all the language-specific items. For example, type this at the command line for Chinese:

msiexec /a eDrawings.msi TRANSFORMS=1028.mst
See Properties for a list of transform files numbers for all supported languages.

Properties

This section contains an example of installation syntax plus a list of all the defined global properties and their descriptions.

Example of installation syntax:

msiexec /i "Msi_path"
INSTALLDIR="path_and_folder"
LOGPERFORMANCE=1
(or 0 (not))
REGCODE=eDrawings_Professional_license_key
SNLSERVER=eDrawings_SNL_server
TRANSFORMS=language-specific number.mst
ADDLOCAL=All
Bold values indicate the default value.
In serial number formats, the x is an alphanumeric character.

The ADDLOCAL property specifies which portion of the eDrawings application to install. All is the recommended option. Command line feature names are case-sensitive, cannot contain spaces or dashes, and must be separated by commas. See the complete list below.

ADDLOCAL Command Line Syntax Feature
All Installs all the features. The eDrawings application searches for installed SOLIDWORKS applications to validate the install.
eDrawingsViewer View eDrawings and other files.
CALS View CALS files in the eDrawings Viewer.
DXFDWGTranslator View DXF/DWG files in the eDrawings Viewer.
Shaders Supply shader files if SOLIDWORKS is not installed.
XML3D View 3DXML files in the eDrawings Viewer.
ENABLECHKFORUPDATE

Specifies whether eDrawings checks for updates.

1 to enable updates every 30 days, 0 otherwise.
INSTALLDIR

Specifies the installation folder for eDrawings.

Defined for individual installations only.
LOGPERFORMANCE

Specifies whether the application automatically emails performance data to SOLIDWORKS Corporation.

1 to send performance data, 0 otherwise.
REGCODE Specifies the serial number for the eDrawings application. A license key for REGCODE is only required for eDrawings Professional licenses.
SNLSERVER

Enter the port@servername for your SolidNetWork License server. Use semicolons to separate multiple port@servername combinations.

A port server name for SNLSERVER is only required for the SOLIDWORKS SNL server configuration. list_of_ports@server_strings is a list of strings delimited by semicolons, each of which refers to a port number on a server with the format: xxxxx@server_name1; yyyyy@server_name2;… where x and y are single digits. After the last server in the list, do not put a semicolon.
TRANSFORMS

Contains language-specific items. See the complete list below for all languages.

Language TRANSFORMS Number.mst
Chinese 1028
Chinese-Simplified 2052
Czech 1029
French 1036
German 1031
Italian 1040
Japanese 1041
Korean 1042
Polish 1045
Portuguese-Brazilian 1046
Russian 1049
Spanish 1034
Turkish 1055