For some time now, showing units in BOMs has been a limitation of SOLIDWORKS. While there have been workarounds to accomplish this, they were not perfect. There have been a number of enhancement requests for this functionality, and I’m excited to share they have been implemented in SOLIDWORKS 2024!
Text type Custom File Properties can now have the units captured from the current document and displayed.
How to Display Units in SOLIDWORKS 2024
To display Units:
- Click Properties
(Standard toolbar). - Go to the Custom tab of the Properties dialog box. Select a property name.
- Specify Text as the property type.
- Click in Value/Text Expression.
- Specify a Property to display from the Properties flyout menu.
- Specify a Unit to display from the Units flyout menu.
Display Units in Properties Tool Bar
Displaying Units in a BOM
When referencing these Custom Properties in a BOM on a Drawing, the units are displayed and updated to match the current document.
Display Units IPS in a BOM
Display Units MMGS in a BOM
Limitation with Equations in BOMs
One important thing to note is that Units specified in the custom property cannot be used with Equations in a BOM. Doing so results in the equation evaluating to zero as shown below.
Equation in BOMs
However, creating the custom property without units results in the correct value.
Create Custom Properties in the Toolbar
Equation in BOMs
Equation syntax: {2}`Length`/2
Displaying Units in SOLIDWORKS BOMs with Equations
To display units in a BOM while using equations, the workaround previously mentioned must still be used. The process has been detailed in the following blog post. Showing or switching SOLIDWORKS BOM Units
