890 Part V Organizing and Managing Drawings

Figure 26-29: When you crash, you see a Drawing Recovery message explaining that you can recover your drawing.

The Drawing Recovery Manager palette then opens, where you see a list of drawings. You can select one to see it in the drawing area. In Figure 26-30, you can see that there are three versions of the drawing named ab21-04.dwg.: the recovered version, the Autosave version, and the original drawing. You can easily and quickly choose any one of these and open them to see which one you want to continue working with.

Figure 26-30: The Drawing Recovery Manager displays backup drawings in one place so that you can open them after a crash.

After a crash, the Customer Error Report window opens so that you can send information to Autodesk about the crash. This information helps Autodesk design AutoCAD to be more stable.

Managing Drawings from Prior Releases

When you upgrade to a new release, you need to understand how to work with drawings from earlier releases. Also, you may need to send drawings to clients or colleagues who have an earlier release. AutoCAD 2006 uses the same format as 2004, and the same goes for AutoCAD

LT. However, you won’t be able to open 2006 drawings in 2002 or earlier releases. In fact, when you open a drawing in AutoCAD 2006 or AutoCAD LT 2006, you’ll notice that the command line tells you that you’re opening a 2004 format drawing.

You can save your AutoCAD 2006 drawings in the following earlier drawing formats:

AutoCAD 2000/LT 2000 Drawing (*.dwg). Because 2002 and 2000 used the same drawing format, this format is also accessible in AutoCAD 2002.

AutoCAD 2000/LT 2000 DXF (*.dxf)

AutoCAD R12/LT 2 DXF (*.dxf)

See the next chapter for more about the DXF format. Choose File Save As and choose the file type in the Save As Type drop-down list. Then click Save. The Drawing Batch Converter is a migration tool that is available from Autodesk’s Web site. You can use this tool to save multiple drawings in an earlier release format. Go to www.autodesk.com and search for Migration Tools. This converter can save as far back as Release 14.

Summary

In this chapter, I covered various methods for managing drawings. You read about the following:

Using the DesignCenter to access drawing components

Using the new tool palettes to access drawings, blocks, and hatches

Maintaining CAD standards, including checking a drawing against a standards drawing and translating layers

Understanding the new Communication Center

Renaming named objects

Organizing your drawings, including archiving drawings, finding them, and setting properties for them

Working with sheet sets

Maintaining security of your drawings with a password and digital signatures

Using the Reference Manager to keep track of external files referenced in a drawing

Handling errors and crashes

Managing drawings from prior releases

In the next chapter, I cover how to use AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT with other applications.

You can export to several other file formats, thereby enabling you to save the file in another format. You can also import several formats. This section explains how to do both.

894 Part V Organizing and Managing Drawings

Exporting drawings

You usually export objects to an image format and then use that format in another application. You may also export a drawing to import it into another CAD program. Table 27-1 shows the file formats that AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT can create. Except as noted, you are prompted to select objects to export.

Exporting to DXF format

DXF (drawing interchange file) format is a text file that contains all of the information in a 2D drawing. Because most CAD programs accept this format, you can export to DXF and send the file to someone else who can then import it into another CAD program. Figure 27-1 shows the part of a DXF file that defines a line. Not only are objects defined, but all layers, linetypes, and other settings are defined, as well. The file lists codes that specify a certain type of data (for example, the X coordinate of a line’s endpoint), followed by the values for the codes (for example, 7.55).

Object

X coordinate of start point

Y coordinate of start point

X coordinate of endpoint

Y coordinate of endpoint

Figure 27-1: Most CAD programs accept the DXF file format.

To create a DXF file, choose File Save As. Choose one of the DXF formats in the Files of type drop-down list. You can save in DXF formats for Releases 12, 2000, and 2004. The 2005 and 2006 formats are interchangeable with the 2004 format. As a result, AutoCAD 2004 and 2005, and AutoCAD LT 2004 and 2005, can open AutoCAD 2006 and AutoCAD LT 2006 drawings, and vice versa. Click Save.

Exporting to other file formats

When you want to export a drawing to another file format, whether to create an image file or import that file into another application, you export the drawing. To export a drawing to another format (except for DWF, JPG, PNG, and TIF), follow these steps:

1.Choose File Export to open the Export Data dialog box, as shown in Figure 27-2.

2.Choose the file format that you want in the Files of Type drop-down list.

3.Find the desired folder using the Save In drop-down list and the Folder box.

4.Click Save.

To export to JPG, PNG, or TIF formats, use the JPGOUT, PNGOUT, or TIFOUT command on the command line. Then, choose a folder, click Save, and select objects at the prompt. AutoCAD LT users need to use the BMPOUT command to export to a BMP file.

896 Part V Organizing and Managing Drawings

Figure 27-2: The Export Data dialog box.

Controlling the display of exported WMF files

The WMFBKGND system variable controls the background of WMF files that you export, whether using the Export dialog box, copying and pasting, or dragging and dropping. When the value of this system variable is Off (the default), the background color of the file is transparent, so that it doesn’t interfere with the background on which it is pasted. You can set it to On so that the background is the same as that of the drawing background.

The WMFFOREGND system variable works in tandem with the WMFBKGND system variable. It controls the foreground (line) color of objects when you export WMF files. WMFFOREGND takes effect only when you set WMFBKGND to 0, which makes the background color transparent. A value of 0, the default, swaps foreground and background colors, if necessary, to make the foreground color (the objects) darker than the background color. A value of 1 does the opposite — the foreground color is lighter than the background color.

STEPS: Exporting a WMF File

1.Open ab27-a.dwg from the CD-ROM.

2.Save the file as ab27-01.dwg in your AutoCAD Bible folder. You can see it in Figure 27-3.

3.Choose File Export. The Files of Type drop-down list should say Metafile (*.wmf). The file name automatically reads ab27-01.wmf.

4.If necessary, locate your AutoCAD Bible folder. Click Save.

Figure 27-3: The Easy Cotton Mills logo.

5.At the Select objects: prompt, make a window around the red rectangle to include all three objects. End object selection to end the command.

You’ve created a WMF file.

Importing files

For most file formats, choose Insert from the menu and then choose Raster Image or the file type that you want to import. Find the file in the dialog box and click Open. In most cases, the command line then prompts you for an insertion point, X and Y scale factors, and a rotation angle, just as for block insertion.

Inserting a DXF file

If someone sends you a file in DXF format, it contains a drawing that was probably created in another CAD program. You can open that drawing in AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT. You can import a DXF file in two ways:

STEPS: Importing a WMF File

1.Open a new drawing using the acad.dwt or aclt.dwt template.

2.Save the file as ab27-02.dwg in your AutoCAD Bible folder.

3.Choose Insert Windows Metafile.

4.If you did the previous exercise, locate your AutoCAD Bible folder in the Import WMF dialog box. Choose ab27-01.wmf. If you didn’t do the previous exercise, find ab27-01.wmf in the Results folder of the CD-ROM. In the Import WMF dialog box, choose Tools Options. Check Wire Frame (No Fills), uncheck Wide Lines if necessary, and click OK. Click Open.