Copying in Autocad 2006

Hello, very simple one here (i hope).

I'm soon to be copying a lot of drawings from one dwg and dumping them in another dwg - for a change of boarder.

The question i have is what's the best way to do this and center the drawing in the middle of the boarder?

Is it simply a case of highlighting the drawing, hitting copy, paste into the model space of the new boarder and then centering by sight/my own judgement or is it better to import and set scales etc and then is there a way to get Autocad to center it within the boarder accurately?

If this is a poor one by even beginners standards then i can only apologise.

Thanks.

You can use the command modifier "M2P" or "MTP" to center the drawing between borders. Command modifiers can only be used within the execution of another command and not as a standalone command otherwise AutoCAD returns the message "Unknown Command".

Hi,

depending on where your borders are (model space or paper space) if you use borders in model space and the new and old are the same size then you cou copy with base point and choose say the bottom left corner of the border. (copy with base point is CTRL+SHIFT+C then select your basepoint). off the top of my head I cannot think of a quick way to do this if you put your borders in the paperspace.

So i could use it whilst i am using the move command then?

Hi,

 

depending on where your borders are (model space or paper space) if you use borders in model space and the new and old are the same size then you cou copy with base point and choose say the bottom left corner of the border. (copy with base point is CTRL+SHIFT+C then select your basepoint). off the top of my head I cannot think of a quick way to do this if you put your borders in the paperspace.

Yes, that is obvious now that you mention it. I'm fairly certain the borders are the same size.

Thanks.

MTP can be used with many commands including Move, Copy, Insert, etc.

not what you asked but when we have to change borders we just redefine the border block. No copying/moving required but only works if your borders are substantially the same size/shape.

not what you asked but when we have to change borders we just redefine the border block. No copying/moving required but only works if your borders are substantially the same size/shape.

They're the same shape, but the places for text are slightly different - there's going to be a bit of copying drawing numbers/revision numbers/etc over too. Would that pull the rug out from under your suggestion?

There's going to be quite a few to do so any way of speeding the process up would be fantastic.

I agree with dbroada. You will have to be the judge on that one though. Try a couple both ways and see which is faster.

OK, thanks.

I don't suppose either of you could give me a brief run through of how to do that and the steps entailed could you?

this only works if your border is a single block and works best if you have utilised attributes for drawing numbers etc.

assuming your current border is "Border_1" and your new border is "Border_2" saved on the network.

My method is to rename the block in your current drawing to "Border_2". (Odd step but all will become clear.)

Then insert your new block. There are several ways to do this but I will assume you have used INSERT & the dialogue box to navigate to the new block. You will get a message box saying "do you want to redefine", say yes. Now escape the command rather than selecting where to place the block.

The border will now be redefined to the new style. If you have used ATTRIBUTES you will need to ATTSYNC the block to get things to line up again.

OK Thanks.

On this machine i have Autocad 2010, but when i'm doing this for real i'll be using 2006 - is it still the same process on the 2 versions do you know? If it is it would allow me to try it out this evening.

yes, no problem in 2006.

this is quite a simple thing to script so if it works for you have a look in to using scripts. I think Lee Mac has a scripting program available.

I got around to actually seeing what is i'll be doing today. Basically i have lots of .dwg files - most of which have 4 or 5 paper space tabs with different views. I have to change the border on each paper space layout and save it in its own .dwg.

That's not too bad, but my border it's set to A3, when i think the existing .dwgs are set to A1, so when i copy my border in it goes off the page in the paper space view. I can modify the page setup so that it's set to A3 and then my border fits - but will i have problems when i come to plot them in A1?

Also, when i set the page to it to A3 to make the border fit the viewport shrinks. If i then try and make the viewport bigger using the grips i end up with more displayed in the viewport than there was initially - if it was a simple drawing it wouldn't be hard to pan and zoom and display only what was initially displayed, but some of the drawings are very complex drawings with lots happening. Is there anyway of making the viewport bigger but retaining only what is currently displayed. Does that make sense?

Thanks.

I figured out the solutions to my problems above this afternoon and now i'm flying. However, one drawings wouldn't let me paste a border in. The feed back from autocad is below - can anyone make any sense of it:

Command: _pasteclip Duplicate definition of block _CLOSEDBLANK ignored.

Duplicate definition of block _Oblique ignored.

Duplicate definition of block _Open30 ignored.

Substituting [simplex.shx] for [txt1.shx].

Substituting [simplex.shx] for [standard.shx].

Specify insertion point: 0,0

Thanks.

I'd redefine the border block. You can make a script up and then run a batch over all your drawings and include a print. Then just flick through the prints and if you have any not looking correct you can "personally" edit those.

Just remember to make a copy/backup of your drawings before you run the batch, just in case you have to start from scratch again. Been there, Done that! check out utility called Multi-batch http://www.multi-batch.com/

I tend to Xref the borders for most clients, so I can modify and next load, all done. Is a pain if you have to realign text areas. I do work for some big oil companies and thier borders are inserted into each file.