EPLAN upgrades Electric P8 Software

Farmington Hills, MI, September 13, 2007 EPLAN announced the latest release of its EPLAN Electric P8 software. Version 1.8 inproves the speed and flexibility for generating comprehensive wiring diagrams complete with all associated reports. EPLAN Electric P8 v1.8 will enable electrical designers to create and manage controls hardware schematics with greater speed, ease and accuracy than ever before. Commenting on the importance of this release, ARC Advisory Group Vice President Jim Caie says: “The additional features EPLAN has incorporated into their already leading edge EPLAN Electric P8 product will save users significant engineering time and help them generate even more robust designs.”Users can now benefit from the following enhancements: Bi-directional in-place text editing between schematics and reportsEPLAN Electric P8 v1.8 includes a direct editing function allowing the users to edit properties such as device tags and function texts directly where they are displayed in the wiring diagrams without having to call up a device dialog box. Naturally, changes made using the in-place editing feature are automatically updated online wherever the same information is referenced in the project. And it gets even better: With EPLAN Electric P8 v1.8, modifications can also be executed in the overall project reports. For example, the user has the flexibility to modify the part number of a limit switch directly on the bill of materials or edit terminal numbers right on the terminal diagram. Once again, the software intuitively updates the new information in real time, thereby ensuring data accuracy and consistency throughout the entire project.PLC/bus topology managementEPLAN Electric P8 v1.8 features a completely revamped PLC/bus topology management capability for centrally processing the automation components of a project in a simple and organized fashion. It also allows for consistent electrical project data exchange with PLC programming software products.Project options technologyEspecially beneficial to machine builders who manufacture different versions of the same equipment, the Project Options module enables users to automatically generate complete project documentation for different product variants in a fraction of the time it would take to re-design or modify them. With this innovative technology, the user first defines the electrical schematics for different machine configurations (product variants). Then, to design a new machine or modify an existing one, he simply selects the option(s) for that product with a few mouse clicks in a central dialog box, and the system automatically displays (or removes) the associated schematic sections and corresponding data throughout the entire project. Project Options module is available as an add-on to the EPLAN Electric P8 Professional software. Other improvements contained in EPLAN Electric P8 v1.8 that simplify and accelerate the design and documentation of electrical wiring diagrams include the ability to redo or undo a series of actions with a single mouse click instead of one by one, freeze desired report pages to shield them from automatic updates, output projects to smart PDF in different languages, group connections for automatic numbering in a different format, effortlessly transfer the format and display settings of an object to other objects with the nifty copy-assign function and split dialog boxes horizontally or vertically for easier viewing and working. EPLAN Electric P8 v1.8 is available immediately from EPLAN Software & Services and its distributor partners. Current Software Maintenance Agreement (SMA) customers will receive the new version 1.8 upgrade free of charge. About EPLAN Software & ServicesEPLAN Software & Services delivers a collection of fully integrated CAE products and services for efficient design of electrical, fluid power, instrumentation and process control systems and 2D/3D enclosures for a wide range of industries. Based in Monheim, Germany with its principle U.S. offices in Farmington Hills, Michigan, the company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Rittal, the world’s largest manufacturer of electrical and electronic enclosures and packaging solutions for controls, automation and IT applications. Since its establishment in 1984, EPLANs global customer base has grown to 18,000 with more than 60,000 licenses installed in over 50 countries on six continents.

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