Bill of Materials

You can insert a Bill of Materials into drawings and assemblies.

A drawing can contain a table-based Bill of Materials or an Excel-based Bill of Materials, but not both.

The table-based Bill of Materials is based on SolidWorks tables and includes:

• Templates

• Anchors

• Quantities for configurations

• Whether to keep items that have been deleted from the assembly

• Zero quantity display

• Excluding assembly components

• Following assembly order

• Item number control

• Ability to open parts and assemblies from the table. (Right-click a row and select Open <model>.)

You can specify a starting Item Number, then set the Increment value by which the item numbers will increase.

You can change the text in any cell by double-clicking and editing on screen (the pointer changes to when you hover over text), but if you edit data generated by SolidWorks (Item Number, Quantity, and so on), you break the link between the data and the Bill of Materials. SolidWorks warns you when editing a cell can break the link between the cell and the linked property. If you break a link, you can restore it by deleting the cell contents.

You can include detailed weldment cut lists in BOMs.

To set options for a Bill of Materials in the active document:

1. Click Options or Tools > Options > Document Properties > Tables > Bill of Materials.

2. Set options and click OK.

To insert a Bill of Materials into a drawing:

1. Click Bill of Materials (Table toolbar), or Insert, Tables, Bill of Materials.

2. Select a drawing view to specify the model.

3. Set the properties in the Bill of Materials PropertyManager, then click OK .

4. If you did not select Attach to anchor point, click in the graphics area to place the table.

   You can change drawing sheets before placing the table.

To insert a Bill of Materials into an assembly or part:

1. Click Bill of Materials (Table toolbar), or Insert, Tables, Bill of Materials.

2. Set the properties in the Bill of Materials PropertyManager, then click OK .

3. Click in the graphics area to place the table.

To exclude assembly components from a Bills of Materials:

1. In the assembly document, right-click the component and click Component Properties .

2. In the Component Properties dialog box, select Exclude from bill of materials, then click OK.

You can dissolve subassemblies and combine like components in BOMs.

To change the value of a custom property in a BOM:

To use custom properties in BOMs, you must set the custom properties in the part files.

Double-click a cell of a BOM column that is linked to a custom property.

Related Topics

Bill of Materials Excel-Based Overview

Bill of Materials Sort

Document Properties - Bill of Materials

Detailed Weldment Cut Lists in Bills of Materials