Cool P&ID Feature : Annotation Editing
In AutoCAD P&ID 2008, you draw your P&ID with “intelligent” items, such as pumps, valves, lines, and so on. The intelligent items contain properties such as size, spec, and flow rates, which the software tracks. Often, the properties are represented on the drawing with annotations. AutoCAD P&ID 2008 offers several ways to place annotations.
One way to place annotations is to use the right-click menu to select an annotation defined for a component, as shown below:
You can also drag and drop any grid text from the Data Manager and place on the drawing as an annotation. The drag-and-drop feature is really cool – it gives you a rubber band drag line to the parent component, so you are sure to label the correct item. The text is placed wherever you click in the drawing. In the example below, I am dragging the 3 HP value from the Data Manager onto the drawing.
Now that I’ve shown you a couple of ways to place annotations, on to the cool editing annotation feature I wanted to show! When you double-click an annotation, the Edit Annotation dialog box is displayed (double-clicking a component displays the component’s properties palette). Below is the Edit Annotation dialog box for my pump's InfoTag. 
Below is another example of the Edit Annotations dialog box—this time, for the one of my line tags.
The Edit Annotation dialog box is smart enough to apply tagging-uniqueness rules and selections lists and to update the item’s properties correctly, while still giving you quick access to change values. Of course, you can also use the Data Manager or the Properties Palette to change property values.
(In case the above has you wondering, you CAN add your own properties to any of our intelligent items; you CAN add your own symbols, and you CAN make your own annotation blocks – all these options are available through project setup.)
