Deleting layers that have nothing on them..

[NateSlink]

iv look and look and tried almost everything but when a job is sent to me and i make my own layers and want to delete the other persons layer when it has nothing on them, they wont delete so what should i do

[soleary]

iv look and look and tried almost everything but when a job is sent to me and i make my own layers and want to delete the other persons layer when it has nothing on them, they wont delete so what should i do
Purge them

[NateSlink]

where do you go to perge them?

[lpseifert]

Type in Purge to perge them...
Laydel will delete everything on a layer and then purge it.

[asos2000]

There are empty block in the drawing

Apply BEDIT command then high light each block you will get an emplty blocks (has no objects),

draw any objects, then save, then select and delete

now purge the drawing

[dbroada]

There are empty block in the drawing

Apply BEDIT command then high light each block you will get an emplty blocks (has no objects),

draw any objects, then save, then select and delete

now purge the drawing
Empty blocks are ONE cause of layers not purging, but not the only one.

[ziemerd]

Dave,

I'm having the same problem. I have layers that don't have anything on them but I can't purge them. If the empty blocks is not the only way could you explain what the other ways are?

Much appreciated.

Dawn

[rkent]

Use LAYMRG to merge the layer you want to go away to a layer you want to keep. Draw a line on each layer and follow the promplts.

[dbroada]

other things that are "impossible" to delete are lines of 0 length and null text. A quick way to see what might be in your drawing try ERASE ctrl-A. If you see grips with nothing apparently attached to them they could be your culprits. The old way to purge drawings was to WBLOCK everything to a new file. This will strip anything not referenced but I can't remember how it handles the 2 objects I mentioned above. My first port of call these days is to zoom away from my drawing (I only use ModelSpace). I then ERASE ALL and deselect my drawing frame and everything inside it. That often eliminates a number of stray entities.

[ziemerd]

I normally turn all layers off except the one I want to delete and then zoom way out, drag a window to select whatever may be there and then delete.
Sometimes that does it.

I went back to revisit my issue deleting a layer that apparently had nothing on it but could not purge it. I used rkent's suggestion of merging the layer with another. That did it but it's probably not the proper way to take care of this issue.

Is there a way to find out what is on the layer that may not be showing up when I zoom way out?

[totzky]

Make the "undeletable layer" as the current layer, then go to paper space. Freeze all other layer, Ctrl+A and Erase. Go back to model space, Ctrl+A and Erase. Change to a different layer and purge.

[dbroada]

do these methods delete layers that may be defined within a (used) block? It never used to but things may have changed over the years.

[ziemerd]

I tried Ctrl A but it selected everything, including objects on other layers that were turned off. However I did not go to paperspace and freeze layers so maybe that would work better. Thanks totzky.

[matt41129]

Ive had problems like this in the past and i just pretty much draw a line change it to the layer im having problems with and isolate the layer and use the _laydel cmd. It gets deletes that layer. I run into this alot with Arch drawings mostly ones that are 3D. Hope this helps.