In EPLAN you have the option of saving certain selected elements or areas of project pages as window or symbol macros. In addition, you can save one or more pages as page macros if you have either selected them in the page navigator or opened them in the graphical editor. For all these actions, stored image files are saved along with the macro.
Create window macros and symbol macros
Precondition:
You have opened a project, are in graphical editing, and have either selected the area on the page that contains the elements you want, or selected individual elements ([Ctrl] + mouse click).
- Select the following commands: Tab Master data > Command group Macros > Create. (After selecting the elements on the page, the menu item Create window macro / symbol macro is also available as an option of the popup menu.)
EPLAN opens the Save as dialog. In the Directory field, the default target directory is displayed. - In the File name field, enter the name of the macro. Click
to select another name and / or another target directory. - If necessary, select one or more variant designations for the macro in the Variant field. This is an interesting option if you want to create different variants for one macro. By default, one macro is saved as "variant A". You can create up to 26 variants for every macro representation type under the same file name.
- If desired, enter a description of the macro into the Description field. The text entered here is displayed in a comments field when inserting macros and simplifies the selection for you.
- If the page scale should be taken into consideration when inserting macros, you have to select the To page scale check box.
- Select the Define handle menu item below the [Extras] button if you want to manually determine the point in the macro on which the cursor depends when inserting. The Save as dialog then closes briefly.
- Move the cursor to the desired position and specify the new location of the handle with a mouse click. Then the Save as dialog will be called up again.
- Click [OK]. The macro is saved to the specified directory under the name <Name>.ema (window macros) or <Name>.ems (symbol macros). EPLAN checks whether a variant already exists under the specified name. If so, you will be requested to decide whether the old macro variant should be overwritten or not.
Notes:
- If nothing is selected on the page, you can still select that area / individual elements after selecting the menu item (request displayed in the status bar).
- Angle and other macro variants are not created automatically, but must be manually generated by you on the project pages, and then finally stored under the same name with a different variant designation. If you have created different variants of a macro, then you can choose between the variants when inserting.
- The macro box is saved in the window or symbol macro according to the specified cut-out.
Create page macros
If the cursor is on a project page in the graphical editor, you can only save consecutive pages in a page macro. On the other hand, in the page navigator you can also save non-consecutive pages in a page macro.
Precondition:
You have opened the page navigator.
- Mark the desired pages in the page navigator.
- Select the following commands: Tab Home > Command group Page > Drop-down button Page macro > Create. (Page macros can also be created via the Create page macro popup menu item.) EPLAN opens the Save as dialog. In the Directory field, the default target directory is displayed.
- In the File name field, enter the name of the macro. Click to select another name and / or another target directory.
- If desired, enter a description of the macro into the Description field. The text entered here is displayed in a comments field when inserting macros and simplifies the selection for you.
- If necessary, in the Number of pages field specify the number of pages to be written into the macro. The default in this field can only be changed if you have not selected more than one page in the page navigator.
- Click [OK]. The macro is saved in the specified directory under the name <Name>.emp, and EPLAN checks if a macro with the specified name already exists. If so, you will be requested to decide whether the old macro should be overwritten by the new one or not.
Tip:
You can create page macros via Drag & Drop by first selecting the desired pages in the page navigator; then you hold down the [Shift] key and drag the pages into the Windows Explorer.
See also