Exporting from SW as step can be done for the assembly or the individual parts.
Importing the step assembly you should get an option to create individual parts, or to create one single part (which is then a big lump of all your parts joined together).
The step does not have the creation history. You get a "dumb solid" of your SW part, but you can then perform operations on it (cut bits off, add bits on).
The imported step assembly, assuming you imported all the separate parts, just has all the parts positioned correctly relative to eachother. There are no constraining mates so you can select and drag them out of position in the new assembly file.
Importing many assmeblies you will reproduce lots of identical screws and standard parts which you would probably want to replace so that you reference library files on your system.
This is what I am looking at doing, but from another system not soidworks. But I would be using step as the export/import.
The pity is that the drawings are lost. You will have to recreate the detail drawings if you need them.
Has anyone got any advice about how to do this for quite a few assemblies. Surely some of you have migrated to Alibre and have advice on this?
Fortunately I can carry on with my old application for legacy data so probably I wont bother recreating the detail drawings for most of my stuff.
