AutoCAD 2010 :: Keep Blocks / Xrefs From Being Edited / Exploded 2012
Nov 16, 2013
Using ACAD 2012 full version
I need to send a dwg file to someone by e-mail but need to keep them from editting/exploding/etc it. I have tried a test on the method described below and it does not work:
Set XEDIT = 0 in the child drawing(s) and create blocks in the child with "Allow Exploding" unchecked.
Start a new drawing and Attach the child into this new parent drawing as an XREF.
This is all fine and does not allow editting/exploding. However, when I XBind or eTransmit, it undoes all this fancy prevention. Even with XEDIT = 0 in the parent.
I know at one time in like ACAD 2000, it was possible to prevent someone from editting/exploding a drawing e-mailed to them. It's been a while. Maybe we used a LISP routine or some features native to ACAD. I just don't remember.
I´ve been using eTransmit command in previous versions, now that I´ve switched to v2012 there´s no longer support to save all dwg xrefs as dwg references in the eTransmit popup window. My dwg xrefs are instead attached as blocks.
I've come across an action that appears to be a bug to me. I have a file Xref'd in my drawing that I've unloaded while I do some edting to the main file. While copying text in paperspace using the Copy & Paste feature from one tab to another, it's causing the unloaded Xref to reload when I activate the Paste feature using the Ctrl-V hot key. How to duplicate this?
I am inserting some mechanical changes into my master drawing (updating my as built drawing). I copy with base point the hvac changes, I paste into the master drawing and all is cool; the block looks fine. When I explode the block, the text and some hvac blocks (like elbows with attribute) are way out off scale, like way bigger than they should be.I don't get it.
I can't locate dynamic door blocks in Autocad 2012 for Mac. I am a student, and my course instructions read to insert a door from: Architectural Tab on Tool palettes (TP) Dynamic Block Name: Door-Imperial. But I do not show that tool palette, nor am I able to locate any dynamic blocks in my content palette.
We received a drawing in which every single block has been exploded, they are just a bunch of polylines now. The company we received it from says they don't have a drawing with the original blocks...sure... The long and the short of it is that we need to replace every exploded block with our standard blocks. Is there some crazy way to search and replace a pattern of lines or basically, search and replace the exploded blocks. A lisp routine, anything. There are thousands of exploded blocks by the way, thousands.
Whenever I select a block or polyline in 2012, the program hangs for about 1 minute. This never happens when using 2010 on the same system. Obviously this can't continue.
I received a cross section file that was created in Micro Station and need to calculate the cut and fill of the project. There is no way to get the 3D files the cross sections were created from. Everything in the file is exploded and flat.
I was going to hatch under and above the existing grade to find the cut and fill and then thought about the scale of the cross sections. In model space the cross sections are 1=1 H and 1=10 V. When I do a hatch and get the area it is giving it to me way high. If I just divide by 10 I don't think that is right either since the hatch areas are very irregular.
Scale the cross section vertical down by 10 and don't change it horizontally. I don't know if this is possible.
Somehow set the horizontal and vertical scale and hatch above and under to get the areas. I don't know if this is possible either.
I have an XREF that contain block inserts sometimes nested 2 or 3 levels deep. Given the block names, is it possible to find and translate the insertion point of the nested inserts to the current World UCS?
Ideally I would give a routine the block name and it would scan the current drawing and return a list of the translated insertionpoints>
I am using several blocks within a drawing (furniture...stock racking, to be precise). I had additional information to add as a new attribute. Opened the block in Block Editor, added the new attribute and saved changes. No change to any of the instances of that block in the drawing? But when I add the same block to the drawing, all new instances have the new information.....which means the block exists, with exactly the same name, in the same drawing in two different forms??? How is this possible and why do the old instances of the block not update to match the current version.
Even more confusing is that if I open an 'old' version of the block in Block Editor....it appears with the new attribute in place and when I close it (saving changes).....it no longer shows that attribute!
Can find no mention of a switch or default that might be causing this.
I am working on a rather big xref setup. The MAIN file has got about 10 OVERVIEW files refferenced in, each of the OVERVIEW files got another 15-20 DRAWING files attached.
Now when i attach OVERVIEW to MAIN it brings in all the DRAWINGS as unique xrefs as well.
Of course i want to see the DRAWNIGS in the MAIN file, but I'd prefer not to see them in the xref-manger (where i want to see only the OVERVIEW files).
An additional problem is that the DRAWINGS contain pictures on layout-tabs which are also shown in the MAIN file xref manager.
So long story short: is there a possibility to "hide" the sub-xrefs in the xref-manager?
Every time I reload the xref, regenerating the drawing or plot my details, I need to wait a long while. I have a plan (dwg) and the details (dwg) where I xrefed the plan 6 times. Everything is purged and audited. i thought this is a good way to work. Some tips how to manage with xrefs.
Any settings that will automatically check changes to an xref and re-load it instead of just telling you "an xref needs reloading"? the problem is occuring when i go to publish and i end up with out-dated info because acad doesn't auto-refresh the xrefs.
When using selection cycling (which I think is brilliant, shame we didn't have it 15 years ago) with an xref attached the application slows right down to the point where moving the mouse results in the cross hairs jumping around and making using anything almost impossible. Turning the xref off or turning selection cycling off restores performance to how it should be. If both are on I just cannot use the program at all, shame really as this new feature is neat. I use x'refs extensively so this fault restricts use of the new feature.
I am running a Quad core 6600 intel processor
4gb Ram Nvidia Quadro NVS 290 32 bit Windows Vista Business
Im working on a drawing and im going to have window tags (ones i created with just text and made into a block) with 8" high text in the main drawing. im going to xref that drawing into another drawing but i want all those window tags to be scaled to .5 (giving 4" high text) but nothing else to scale. Is there a way that i can do this?
I will be working with a company across town on a drawing set. Let's call my company CompanyA and them CompanyB. We will be colaberating on the drawing together possibly in realtime. What I need to do is to be able to xref their drawing into mine and mine into theirs and I need to be able to still make changes to my drawing and them to theirs.
CompanyA - DrawingA CompanyB - DrawingB DrawingA will xref DrawingB DrawingB will xref DrawingA
When I make changes to my drawing I need to be able to save it without the attched xref so as not to nest the xrefs in a loop.
how annotative objects function through xrefs and am running into some trouble.I created a brand new drawing, made an annotative symbol and 2 peices of annotative text, all three have 1"=20' and 1"=40' assigned to them. I can switch my scale back and forth and the objects act as they should.
If creat a second drawing and xref the first one, the only way I can see these xref'd objects is if I set ANNOALLVISIBLE to "1" or if I select one of their xref scales as the current scale 1"=20'_Xref or 1"=40'_Xref.
My goal is to be able to have plans that are annotative that can be xref'd into another annotative drawing and have the objects in both that are the same scale show up.
how to turn off transparency display of the xrefs? When i xref drawing A into drawing B, drawing A displays transparency. That autocad default and I want to turn it off.
I have been searching for a solution to better manage xrefs. We work with arch. dwgs and they often contain several nested xrefs. While working in our "base.dwg", I need a method to correct the problem of some layers in the xrefs from displaying in the base.dwg when they're frozen in the xref dwgs. VISRETAIN is at 1. What I'm having to do is click on the problem geometry, identify what xref it's in, open that xref to record the layer state(all the layers that should be frozen or thawed), go back to the base dwg, look in Layer Manager to indentify that xref's layers and freeze the layers I need frozen. However, if I open the xref all those layers that should be frozen ARE frozen, but back in the base dwg they are displayed (not frozen). It's very frustrating...espec. when you've got half a dozen or more xrefs in many of their dwgs; which are all multiplied in the base of course so I've got two dozen or more xrefs to sift thru. It's just such a pain. I guess I need a "tip" on how to properly manage xrefs.
What would be neat is to be able independently manage all the Layer States for the xrefs separate from the base dwg's Layer States--meaning they(the xrefs' states) DON'T affect the other layers in the base(or other xrefs). LS Manager lists all layer states and if you restore one of them, it affects the entire dwg. I don't want that. I want the Layer States to control ONLY those states that apply to the xref it was created in. That way, all I'd need to do is click on the xref in Layer Manager(from the base dwg) and restore that particular xref's layer state and be DONE. That way you could manage all your xref Layer States individually (and independently from) the base dwg. Thus, if you make changes in the xrefs you can easily save/restore those states from within the base.
I have a base plan. The text scale is set to 1"=40' I xref the base plan into a strucural bridge plan sheet and scale the base map x 12 so that i can work in architetural scale. How do I get the text to scale correctly in the xref'd base map that has been scaled by 12 for a 1/8" scale?
I'm trying to reload a bunch of xref's through the project support path that I have setup, Really the project support path should be able to reload all the xref if they are already there. The problem is that the xrefs that im trying to reload ( the staus: says Unfreferenced and the type: Attachment) and when I type in the project name and then reload the xrefs, they should be able to find and link the xref to the drawing, but Im getting a a message saying that the xrefs are Orphaned and the status is Unreferenced. Its as though the system cant seem to find the xrefs with my projectname support path that I have setup.
i have a large number of drawings that need xrefs detached and re-attached with the latest model xrefs, any way to do them in bulk rather than opening each individual drawing? the problem started a while back, when opening drawings, ACAD is not loading the latest 'saved' model when opening drawings...
We’re working in AutoCAD 2010 but need to save as 2007 DWG. AutoCAD is set in Options to save to 2007 format, and all files - host and reference - are or should be in that format.
Something is triggering an automatic save of the xrefs. The xrefs are not being edited, in-place or otherwise, but every so often I get a balloon message saying the xref has changed and I need to update it. So I update it, and when I check the file format, I find it’s been saved in 2010 DWG.
Other people on the project are also having this problem. Engineers on this project are using 2009 and keep coming to us and asking where the xrefs are.
This is AutoCAD 2010, "English Version 3" running in XP2 SP3.
I have drawings which are occasionally transmitted to vendors, building officials and other parties. These drawings contain XREFs for the floor plans, roof plans, site plans, etc. Some of these XREFs contain layers with sensitive information the client does not want distributed to third parties.
If I'm just sending a PDF or plotting locally the sensitive layers are turned off or frozen and the PDF is plotted without layers. This is sufficient to protect the sensitive data. But if the third party requests a CAD file then I have a problem.
If I use Send to create a package of dependent files including XREFs they are included whole with all of the sensitive data on frozen layers.
If I Bind the XREF to a copy of the drawing for distribution the sensitive layers are still included as frozen layers.
In either case I am confronted with the task of deleting a large number of layers and we all know what a chore deleting layers with content can be. There has to be a solution to this problem, either an easier way to delete layers or a way to filter them in the binding process. Currently I am removing the XREF and making a block of the essential layers each time I have to make a distribution but these are large and complex drawings making this a chore as well.
Arguably this would be much simpler if AutoCAD had a better method for removing layers such as offering to a. move all contents to layer 0, b. delete all layer contents or c. cancel instead of just telling me I can't delete the layer because there are contents like we're still using R12.
