I tried to do a test-project in Inventor using an existing job we had already completed a couple years ago. We were offered some deal from our reseller when the company first started up, and they offered us Inventor for the price of Autocad or something, and since it COMES with Autocad, they jumped on it since the Inventor was just lagniappe, so we have Inventor on subscription. It's usually just shelved. I pull it out occasionally to save IAM files down to a DWG for our engineers to analyze since we only have one seat of inventor and they don't know how to use it.
I used it pretty well at my last gig for metal fab with sheet metal, tubing, angles, and bar stock type things.
I found online content to be extremely lacking for structural, though, so there was little help to get me up off the ground for the basics. It may have been my lack of knowing where to look.
I've never set up a good drawing template, either, though... it was never a priority at my last job.
I would love to know what type of libraries and, if you utilize them, iParts you've used. I assume structural bolts and steel shapes at least, are something you library'd?
Using a simple platform as an example, what are some of the specifics about the software that made it so much better, in your opinion? I had been tossing around the idea of giving Inventor a whirl, again, for some of our structural as I delved more and more into 3D in Autocad and found myself more and more frustrated with what I -wish- I could do in it.