IDW Bill Of Material (with thumbnails) export to .xml???

[superslinky]

What good is the the bill of materials in inventor? I mean when you insert a parts list and right click it, it give an option of "Bill of Materials". If you select that you get a nice looking list of parts with thumbnails. What good is it or how can I utilize it? It seems that it can be exported but only as a .xml file which then is no good to me. Any ideas?

[Lazer]

The BOM gives more control to the parts list, if you use grease on an assembly you can list it on the BOM and structure it as a Phantom part. 2010 Inventor will allow you to export the Bom as Access and an Excel file.

[MarkFlayler]

The ONLY way to get the thumbnails along with the BOM is to use Inventor Publisher (separate product).

 

As Lazer mentioned one of the great uses for the BOM there are a whole host of other reasons as well, especially for Vault Professional users.

[GuyH]

There is also another option. This works quite well.

 

http://modthemachine.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/02/parts-list-with-thumbnail-image.html

 

Hope that helps.

 

Cheers,

Guy

[superslinky]

This is one of the best add-on's I've seen! Thanks for the info GuyH!

[GuyH]

Happy to help. It's a really nice add on. The documentation side is one area I'd like them to expand upon with Inventor personally.

 

Cheers,

Guy

[Raider_007]

Hi go have a look at http://www.ductpro.net

 

Click on "Other usefull Inventor Tools" and then download the BOM export tool.

 

Works well but has a limit of 150 BOM rows it can export to Excel. Make sure your Windows 7 User Account Control is switched off when using the tool.