Using the BOM Balloons tab on the Table Properties dialog box, you can create customized balloons with user-defined symbol instances. When you use a customized symbol to show balloons, the system substitutes variable text with corresponding report parameters. If the default value of the variable text matches a report symbol specification, the value of that report symbol is displayed in the customized symbol.

For example, if the variable text default value is asm.mbr.name, the system displays the member name in the balloon. In the symbol instance, the system updates only the report parameters that it displays in the balloon region; other variable texts display their default values. In addition to report parameters displayed in the table, the system uses two special keywords as default values for the variable text: The system replaces "qty" with the quantity, as in default quantity balloons, and treats "index" as the index field in default balloons. For variable text with default value as “index”, the system uses “rpt.index” as the value of the variable text.

Click the Select/Change on the BOM Balloons tab to specify a different parameter for the index field.

The system considers a customized balloon to be a quantity custom balloon if it contains variable text whose default value is "qty."

The BOM Balloon leader is always attached to the closest defined attachment point when you place the BOM balloon. For a custom BOM balloon with right and left leaders defined, the balloon leader automatically switches to the appropriate side when you drag the balloon to a new location.

If you define a custom BOM balloon that uses a symbol with Allow Elbow attribute, and you drag such a custom BOM balloon to a new location, the elbow and the leader switch to the appropriate side. Similarly, if you change the elbow length of the BOM balloon leader by dragging the symbol along the elbow direction, the elbow and the leader switch to the appropriate side.