Title blocks
Drawing attributes are displayed in the drawing's title block. The following illustration shows a portion of the DB Properties dialog from Creo Elements/Direct Drawing Manager, with arrows pointing to some of the fields mapped onto the title block.
Title block frame and title block
• The frame includes the border (for example, A4), the title block, and any labels.
• In some working environments, the frame is simply referred to as the title block. The database includes 10 pre-defined title blocks. Your administrator may provide additional, customized, title blocks.
• A reference to the title block is saved as part of the drawing. This means that when you load a drawing that was saved with a title block, the title block is reloaded (and updated) with the drawing.
Text references
The fields in a title block are defined through text references. Text references are database variables, and therefore reflect the values in the database. You can change a text reference value by editing the DB Properties dialog.
Text reference commands include:
• > and > will show the values and names of the text references.
• > will bring up a table showing all text reference names, and their associated values.
All text references reflect values for the whole drawing (as opposed a part in the drawing). In Creo Elements/Direct Drawing Manager, text references are used in two different ways:
• Text references - title blocks use text references to display database values. Do not add, change, or customize text references, since the title block is not saved with the drawing, and will therefore not retain changes.
• Drawing text references - You can add text references to your drawing. You can add, change, or customize drawing text references. Drawing text references are saved with the drawing.
If you add a text reference to a part (as opposed to the whole drawing), it will continue to be associated with that part. If you de-select the part in the Part Browser, you also de-select the text references associated with the part. However, the value associated with the text reference will be the database value for the drawing, not the part.
For example, suppose you have a drawing called many-rectangles, and one part in the drawing is called rectangle-3. If you add the Name text reference to rectangle-3, then save the part (or otherwise update the database), the value for Name will be many-rectangles (the drawing name), not rectangle-3 (the part name).
For information on how to add and customize drawing text references, see Add and customize drawing text references.
Saving and loading a title block
In Creo Elements/Direct Drawing Manager, the title block is not saved with the drawing. Instead, when you save a drawing that contains a title block, a reference to the title block is saved. Each time you load the drawing, the title block is also loaded and updated.
 | In Annotation, the title block is actually saved as part of the drawing. In Creo Elements/Direct Drafting, a title block is referenced in the drawing. |