External documents (e.g., MS Word or PDF files) can be added to the project. The External document page type allows these documents to be displayed in the page navigator and the table of contents. There is only one page type for external documents, regardless of the file type of the documents. For external document pages, the symbol normally used in the operating system for the relevant file type is displayed in the page navigator. For example, the well-known Word® symbol is used for an MS Word® document. A document of an unknown type is represented in the tree view using the EPLAN symbol.
The external document is referenced by an entry in the page properties. If no path is specified for the document in the External document property, this means that the document is located in the project directory. A reference to the current project directory is not provided here.
The document name can be manually entered or searched for using the file selection dialog. If a file name in the current project directory is chosen using the file selection dialog, then the file name is entered into the input field without a path name, otherwise the full path name and file name is entered.
You can use the Insert path variable popup menu item to branch to the dialog Select path variable where you can select one of the available path variables.
Management and editing
External document pages are managed in the same manner as normal pages, and the identifying page properties also exist. All page editing functions, such as sorting and numbering, can also be used with external document pages. For example it is also possible to assign a plot frame differing from the project settings to an external document. During the view and when printing this plot frame is not reported, but is considered during the export to PDF.
However, not all properties of a normal page are useful for this type of page, e.g. you cannot enter dimensions.
Every external document is displayed as a single page in the table of contents, regardless of how many pages the external document actually has.
External documents can be opened from the page navigator with a double-click; the appropriate program is then started, where you can then edit the document. External documents cannot be opened by paging through them as with normal pages.
When copying pages between projects, external documents are copied into the target project directory if the document is located in the current project directory.
Printing
External documents can be printed from EPLAN. The program associated with the external document is started and is provided with the print command. The print settings, such as the settings Reverse print order, Number of copies, and Collate, have no effect on the external documents. Moreover, no plot frames are printed and the page numbers are not incremented in the project. Pages of external documents are also not presented in the print preview.
Pages of external documents are always printed at the end of a document in separate print jobs. If multiple external documents are printed from multiple projects, they are always printed after all of the other documents.
Note:
Documents that are linked via hyperlinks are printed when Attached documents are also selected in the scope of printing. The corresponding files, must be located on a local drive or a network drive to which you have access. You specify the scope of printing in the Backstage view Print: File > Print > Group box Scope of printing.
Data backup
Files located in the project directory are included in the data backup process. When creating an external document page, the program therefore asks whether the document is to be copied into the program document directory \$(EPLAN)\Projects\<...>\<Project name>\DOC.
See also