Hi everyone.
I'd like to take just a minute and talk
about the save as a previous version
that started in SOLIDWORKS with the 2024
release of the software.
And what this allows us to do
is to basically save back
to two previous versions of SOLIDWORKS.
So currently I'm in SOLIDWORKS 2025,
and if I tell SOLIDWORKS that I want to do
a save as a previous version,
it's pretty easy.
I just have to click
save as and then from my drop down menu
from my file tab, you'll note that
two previous versions back again.
Since I'm in 2025,
I have access to 24 and 2023.
What's nice about this is that we do
now have backward compatibility
at a certain level
with previous versions of SOLIDWORKS,
and there's a neat little catch.
All that happens if we have a feature
or a function that's been used
in a newer version that doesn't exist
in the previous version.
So in this case,
I'm going to save this as a 2023
version of the file.
And so I'll note that
file name and just say save.
And this is that neat little catch
all that I was talking about.
So in this case it's notifying me
that there are some incompatible
items
that aren't available in SOLIDWORKS 2023.
Of note, 2024
incorporated a symmetric option
for linear patterns
that is not available in 2023.
So in order for me to save this
in the prior version, I'll need to either
delete the feature or find a workaround
to not use that symmetric option.
So let's see how we can fix it.
What I'll
choose to do is edit the feature,
and instead of using the symmetric option,
I'll toggle that off.
Choose a new direction
for direction two.
And now I'll use
my pattern seed only option
to eliminate a duplicate pattern
over the seed.
Of a silly me.
That looks much better.
So now that we've worked around
the use of that symmetric option,
let's see what happens
if we do a save as previous version.
In this case,
kind of none adjacent to the part.
You'll note that we get a notification
saying that some added data
may be removed from the document.
Again, newer versions of the software
may have add ins that are not compatible
with the older version, not necessarily
functionality with the part.
So we'll go ahead
and say proceed, but save
and SOLIDWORKS
will create our part for us.
So that's a little bit
of the ins and outs of how we can save
as a previous version with SOLIDWORKS.