Moving into the Assembly World - Autodesk Inventor 2010: No Experience Required - page 150

12. At the end of the Model tab, pick the Return icon to go back to the
assembly.
13. Save your work.
Creating components is something you'll do on a regular basis with Autodesk
Inventor. But relatively few products are created without purchased components.
Inventor has a few options for obtaining these components. The most commonly
used is the Content Center.
Working with Standard Parts
The Content Center contains standard parts and steel shapes. If you load all the
standards, there are more than 700,000. Chances are you'll only use a handful,
but Inventor allows you to establish your own custom library containing only
the content you'll use.
If you haven't installed the Content Center, the following exercise won't work. I
can't stress strongly enough the importance of installing and understanding the
Content Center. Inventor 2010 gives you two options to install the Content Center:
You can use the Desktop Content for an individual user or install the Autodesk
Data Management Server to share a single source of content among multiple
users; it also acts as the backbone for the included data-management system
called Autodesk Vault.
Not using the Content Center severely limits many of Inventor's most innova-
tive tools. To better understand how to install and initiate the Content Center,
review CC_2010_Install_guide.pdf , which is installed on your hard drive with
Inventor automatically. It will guide you through the setup process.
In this exercise, you'll use the most basic technique for adding standard con-
tent to your assembly:
1. Click the down arrow under the Place icon in the Component panel.
2. Select the Place from Content Center option. Doing so launches the
Place from Content Center dialog. See Figure 3.37.
3. Expand the Fasteners category. Then, expand the Countersunk cate-
gory, and select Sheet Metal Screws.
Among the tools above the category list is an icon resembling a
funnel. Clicking the down arrow next to it presents a list of the stan-
dards on which the available content is based.