As drawing versions might be defined to be automatically removed with the advanced option XS_DELETE_UNNECESSARY_DG_FILES, you might want to protect some versions from the removal. The Drawing versions feature introduces a new option to mark versions as Always necessary, which means that the version you select will be protected from the automatic removal of the old drawing versions.

This improvement was already introduced in Tekla Structures 2023 SP1.

When you want to select another model as the source for templates, you can now use copying and pasting in the folder path box in the Creation review dialog box.

For more information about fabrication drawings, see Create fabrication drawings.

The default font setting for texts, value fields, and marks in drawings has been changed from Arial Narrow to Arial in the Common and Default environments.

The reason for replacing the Arial Narrow font is that it is not always delivered in the Windows installation and may be missing from the computer. If the Arial Narrow is missing from the computer:

• The system draws the text with another font type, which usually corresponds to the Arial font.
• The resulting text is much bigger than the text in the original drawing, and it might overlap other objects.
• If you create a model using standard environment files and send it to another user with a different configuration for Arial Narrow, the drawing might look different.

Handling the printing settings has been improved, and you can now see more clearly if the settings have been changed or not.

• Now when you open the Print Drawings dialog box, and load some printing settings, the Save button remains disabled.
• Once you make some changes in the printing settings, the name of the settings file will be displayed in italics and will have an asterisk at the end. The Save button will be enabled once you have changed the settings.

Tekla Structures 2024 also introduces custom RGB colors and improvements in line property handling in printing. For more information, see New custom colors in drawings and improvements in line properties.

Drawing content manager now has two new building object categories: Sub-assemblies and Reference objects.

You can quickly and easily, for example:

• Add marks to or remove marks from sub-assemblies and reference objects.

• Check how many marks sub-assemblies and reference objects have in one view or in the entire drawing.

• Check the sub-assembly hierarchy level.

You can now also control how sub-assembly parts are shown in Drawing content manager by using the new Show sub-assembly secondary parts option on the Options menu.

Show sub-assembly secondary parts is by default selected so that Drawing content manager lists in the Parts category all the parts that belong to the selected assemblies and sub-assemblies. In addition, the assembly main parts are listed in the Assemblies category and the sub-assembly main parts in the Sub-assemblies category.

If you do not wish to show sub-assembly parts in the Parts category, click Show sub-assembly secondary parts. Now only the Sub-assemblies category will list the sub-assembly parts.

For more information, see Drawing content manager.

The unit setting for CC, CC_CROSS, CC_DIAMETER_CROSS, CC_DIAMETER_LONG, CC_EXACT, CC_EXACT_CROSS, CC_EXACT_LONG and CC_LONG stopped working when a fix was made to get them working in filtering. Our investigations confirmed that these two requirements are contradicting and they cannot work simultaneously. Based on the customer feedback, we have now decided to reverse the previous fix, which means that now the above mentioned attributes no longer work in filtering by default.

You can control this functionality in contentattributes_global.lst. By default, the Unit type is now set to Length for these attributes, which enables the unit settings in drawings but the filtering does not work. If you leave the unit type empty, the filtering works but the unit settings do not.

Here is an example line from contentattributes_global.lst of a situation where the unit settings work in drawings:

CC_EXACT CHARACTER LEFT TRUE 20 0 Length mm

You can now add custom properties in rebar marks. To do this, in mark content settings on the Mark 1 or Mark 2 tab, select Template attribute from the Available elements list and enter the name of the custom property, for example, CUSTOM.REBAR_NUMBER.

For more information about this tool, see Draw rebar pull-out pictures with Rebar pull-out picture and marking application.

Rebar group marking speed has been improved by changing the tool update behavior in the drawing opening. Now the tool is updated only when the related objects in the model have changed. Previously, all instances of the tool were always updated in the drawing opening.

• Bent rebar assemblies and rebar sets are now supported.

• The name of the rebar mesh view now comes from the CATALOG_NAME template attribute.
• A new option, Bent mesh rotation, has been added for rotating bent meshes. The options are Default, 90, 180, and 270. If you select Default, meshes are always oriented so that the bent rebars are on the horizontal axis.