Migrating Styles to Autodesk Inventor 2014 from a Previous Release

“The flow of migration is not this inexorable, constant increase.”
Roberto Suro

It's that time of year again.  Autodesk Inventor 2014 is hitting the streets, and I'm kicking the tires on the new release. 

One of the first steps I like to do, is migrate my custom styles (dimension styles, Sheet Metal Rules, Thread Data, etc) and templates to the current release

In this post, I'm only going to focus on migrating my styles.

Getting started with the styles.

The Wikihelp for Autodesk 2014 contains the steps for migration, but states that I can:

"Continue to use the migrated library. It will function exactly as it did in the previous release. However, you will not be able to take advantage of the corrections and additional styles that Autodesk has added in the latest release."

Translation?  If I just migrate all my 2013 styles libraries to 2014, I may be missing some good stuff. In light of that, I decided to merge my custom libraries with the standard 2014 styles, which is a departure from the method I used in my post a couple of years ago.

So here's how I went about it this year.

First I made a decision where I'm going to keep my 2014 design data.  Since I'm on a laptop, I keep them in a "Utility Folder", based on version.  

True, the default locations could be used, but I like having my styles in a location I choose.

The Utility Folders I like, based on Inventor Version

Now, I direct my installation of Inventor 2014 to look at that folder.  This can be done in one of two places, in Application Options with the File Tab.

Or in the Folder Options section of the project.  Note, that if the paths specified in Folder Options is different than that in Applications Options, the Folder Options path will be used.

The location as used in the project

I'm going to copy my default styles libraries from Inventor 2014s default location (which is the one depicted in Application Options), to the "Utility Folder" I created.

Copying the standard styles from the default location to my custom location.

With that out of the way, I  copy the Styles from my previous release, Inventor 2013, into a new "Transition" directory.  The reason for this is twofold.

1) I'm not playing with my live 2013 styles
2) I can still use that old data to work with the previous version of Inventor, which I often need to do.

Copy and Paste my previous versions styles to the transition folder

With my "setup" completed, I'm going to go ahead and open the Styles Library Manager, Located in Windows Start>Programs>Autodesk>Inventor 2014>Tools

Locating the Styles Library Manager

 Once the Styles Library Manager is open, I'll browse to my "Transition Folder" from the left pane, and my new location in the right pane.  The custom styles, which are currently missing from the 2014 library, are shown in blue.  These are my custom libraries

A sample of my Dimension Styles.  Two of my custom styles are in blue

Clicking on the "Migrate" button, the libraries will be migrated for use with 2014.

Migrations done!

After migration, the arrows to copy the style to the new location for Inventor 2014 light up, and by clicking the button, the styles are transferred over.

Click to transfer over

It's just a matter for repeating this for any other styles that need to be done, and soon, you'll be off and running!

An example of the transferred libraries

And for more information, naturally, I've included a video below!