Before you use the metric conversion you will need to set up or pick a template for the project you are converting. The program includes a default conversion template that can be used, but is read-only and cannot be modified.
The user can create new templates that can be modified to match the unit of measure descriptions in your state or owners’ proposal. To create a new template, click on the new template button at the bottom of the window. Enter the name for the new template. The program uses the Default template as a source template for the new template. The user can now modify the new template. The metric conversion program uses the projects unit of measure to determine which conversion factor to use. It matches an items unit of measure with the unit of measure in the setup template. If it finds an exact match, it does the conversion; if it doesn't find an exact match it leaves the item quantities, costs and unit of measure as they were.
To modify a template to meet your needs you will need to decide which English units you want your metric units converted to. Within the metric setup window, there are four columns. The first column is the Metric Description, which is a description of the metric unit for that row. The second column is the Metric Unit of measure, which will contain a symbol used for the Metric Description in that row. The Metric Unit is the symbol that the Metric Conversion searches for when converting between metric and English. For example, if your project used "M" for meters, that is what the Metric Conversion utility would look for when it does its conversion. If you want the Metric Conversion to look for "meters" instead of "M" you would enter "meters" into that column instead of "M". The third column is the Imperial Unit or English unit which is what the Metric Unit in that row would be converted to. The fourth column is titled "USE". The Use column let's you decide what imperial or English measurement you want the metric units converted to. For example, there are three different imperial units that meters can be converted to. By checking the imperial unit you want, the program will convert the Items that match to the English unit and save that template with the project until it is converted back to metric.