Creating Placeholder Objects

Precondition:

You have opened a project page in the graphical editor. Or you have opened a layout space.

Select the following menu items: Insert > Placeholder object
Select an area with objects that should belong to the placeholder object.
Select the Placeholder object tab in the Properties <...>: Placeholder object dialog.
Enter a name for the placeholder object in the Name field.

Only the objects (functions, graphical elements, page / layout space, etc.) and no properties are initially displayed for a new placeholder object in the table on the Assignment tab.
In the Property column of the Assignment tab mark an object of the placeholder object, and click (New) to select the desired properties for this object and transfer them to the table.
Activate the check box Hide objects without selected properties if only those objects for which a property is selected are still to be displayed in the table.
Change to the Values tab.
Select the New variable popup menu item.
In the Name new variable dialog specify the name of the new variable. EPLAN will automatically check whether the specified name is valid.

The new variable is inserted as a new cell below the Variable column heading.
Select the New value set popup menu item.
Enter the name of the value set into the header of the new column and the value of the variable in the table cell below.
Activate the check box in the Modifiable column for a variable if you possibly still want to change the values of these variables when selecting the value set.
Repeat these steps for all additional variables and value sets to be generated.
Change back to the Assignment tab.
Right-click in a cell of the Variable column for a selected property and select the popup menu item Select variable.
In the subsequent dialog select the desired variable and click [OK].

The variable is inserted into the Variable column in the form <name_entered>.
Repeat this variable assignment for all desired properties.
Click [OK].

The new placeholder object is automatically placed on the left above the selected area. The placeholder object is displayed using a special "anchor" symbol in the graphical editor page.

A new placeholder object in a layout space is not displayed as an anchor symbol in the graphic, but rather by an "anchor" icon within the tree structure of the layout space navigator.

Notes:

A block editing of multiple placeholder objects is possible if all selected placeholder objects have the same variable name and the same value set name. In this case you can edit the fields Name and Description in the subsequently opened property dialog for placeholder objects as well as the variables and value sets together on the Value tab. A value set generated via (New) or a new variable is added to all selected placeholder objects.
If the mentioned requirements are not met, you can only change the name and description for a multiple selection of placeholder objects.
The Compress project dialog contains a suitable setting for deleting all the placeholder objects in a project. To do this, select the Placeholder objects check box (under the Remove placed functions entry) and then compress.
You can specify whether the anchor symbols are displayed on a page in the graphical editor or not in the Layer management dialog by using the Visible setting for the EPLAN322, Symbol graphic.Macro.Placeholder objects layer.

Tips:

You can also directly define a new variable in the Assignment tab. To do this, enter the name at the desired position in the Variable column. The new variable is then available as a new column in the Values tab, where value sets can then be defined.
If you assign a variable to specific properties in the dialog Properties <...>: Placeholder object, you can select the value for this variable via a drop-down list or select a selection dialog with predefined values in the Values tab. To do so, click in a corresponding table cell and open a drop-down list or use [...] to call up the respective selection dialog. Selection dialogs for a value selection are offered, for example, at properties such as Part number [1] – [50], Function definition: Category / Group / Definition, Connection color / number, properties for structure identifiers, etc.