Adding a Viewer for the View File Command (For SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional only)

When you associate an external viewer with a specific file type, the following actions display the file in the external viewer window:

  • Right-click the file and select View File.
  • Select View File (toolbar).
  • Select View in the History dialog box.
  • Select View in received notifications.
Changing these settings does not affect the Preview tab in SOLIDWORKS PDM File Explorer and Item Explorer. The Preview tab relies on active-x supported viewers installed on the client. For file types that are not supported in the Preview tab, associate a stand-alone viewer and start it with one of the actions above.

This procedure describes adding a viewer for a user. You can also add a viewer for the members of a group.

To add a viewer:

  1. Under Users, right-click a user and select Settings.
  2. In the Settings dialog box, on the Viewers tab, click Add.
  3. Under Selected viewer, add the extensions that should be associated with the viewer, separated by commas.
  4. Enter the full path to the viewer application or click Browse to locate it.

    If the viewer is installed in a system folder, the variable ProgramFiles replaces the system path so that the path is evaluated correctly on all clients, regardless of operating system settings. You can also click to select other system variables.

    If the path contains spaces, enclose it with quotes (" ").

  5. Add any optional parameters to the viewer application in the path field.
    To insert the file name argument of the file to be viewed, click and select Argument "%1 %" .
    Depending on the viewer, you may have to enclose the full program path to the viewer in double-quotes.
  6. Click OK.