Mini Tool Add-in for Autodesk Inventor — 5 Features That Save Engineers Hours Every Week
If you work with Autodesk Inventor on a daily basis, you already know the drill. Opening the matching CAD drawing means digging through folders. Every new assembly needs the BOM reformatted from scratch. Saving a drawing file requires navigating to the right folder every single time. Small tasks, but they add up — and none of them move your actual work forward.
Mini Tool Add-in was built to eliminate exactly that kind of friction.
What Is Mini Tool?
Mini Tool is a lightweight add-in for Autodesk Inventor that sits directly in the ribbon, no extra libraries, no complex configuration. Once installed, a Mini Tool panel appears in your Assembly, Part, and Drawing environments — ready to use immediately.
It was developed by a practicing design engineer, so every feature comes from a real workflow problem, not a feature list on a whiteboard.
The 5 Features
1. Open CAD — Find and Open Your Drawing File Instantly
You are looking at a part in Inventor and need the corresponding AutoCAD drawing. Normally that means remembering the file name, opening Explorer, drilling through folders, and hoping you land in the right place. With Open CAD, you select the component and click. The add-in searches your configured folders and opens the matching .dwg file automatically.
It supports multiple search folders, recognizes revision suffixes in file names, and works with any file extension — not just .dwg.
2. BOM Format — Apply Your Company Template in One Click
Most teams have a standard BOM layout — specific columns, a specific order, specific view settings. Every time you open a new assembly, you have to set it up manually. Every single time.
BOM Format lets you save your company's BOM configuration as an XML file and apply it to any assembly or drawing with one click. Structured View, Parts Only View — everything configured exactly the way your team needs it, instantly.
3. Name Update — Keep Occurrence Names in Sync with File Names
After renaming files or reusing assemblies across projects, the display names of occurrences often drift away from their actual file names. That causes confusion in the BOM and when collaborating with colleagues.
Name Update walks through the entire assembly — including all nested sub-assemblies — and updates every occurrence display name to match its actual file name, numbered :1, :2 in standard Inventor format. One click and the whole assembly is clean again.
4. Save IDW — Save Your Drawing to the Right Place Without Browsing
When you create a new drawing file in Inventor, Save As asks you to navigate to the correct folder manually. In a deep folder structure, it is easy to save in the wrong location and not notice until later.
Save IDW removes that step entirely. Click the button and the add-in automatically saves the .idw file to the same folder as the referenced model. No browsing, no guessing, no mistakes.
5. Check Reference — Catch BOM Structure Errors Before They Become Production Problems
One of the hardest mistakes to catch in a large assembly is a component accidentally set to BOM Structure = Reference. It disappears from the BOM silently, and you may not notice until materials are already missing on the shop floor.
Check Reference scans the entire assembly — including nested sub-assemblies — and exports a list of every occurrence currently set to Reference. You can also configure an exclude list to skip intentional Reference components like standard fasteners or purchased parts, so results stay focused on what actually needs attention.
Setup and Configuration
Mini Tool ships as a standard Windows installer. Run it, and the add-in is placed in the correct Inventor ApplicationPlugins folder automatically. Restart Inventor and the panel is there.
All configuration — search folders, BOM XML path, exclude list, display language — is managed through a clean Settings window inside the add-in. No config files to edit manually.
The add-in supports 7 languages: English, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean, Chinese (Simplified), Spanish, and Portuguese.
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