Blocks with "*A" - how to deal with

Dear Forum.

I would like to globally edit blocks that we have in a drawing that was created in Microstation. All the blocks seem to have a '*A' in the name. It is preventing me from editing or manipulating the blocks.

I need to be able to globally manipulate the different kinds of sprinklers in the drawing as I need to bring this into another program (Autosprink)

I came I have attached a file with part of the drawing. Any help would be great.DS Block Prob 1.dwg

We have Autocad 2010 and 2013 in house - though usually use Autosprink for our design.

Thank you.

these are anonymous blocks and are quite difficult to use with OOTB AutoCAD commands. There are several LISP routines on this site to manipulate them or their names.

Do a forum search for anonymous blocks.

There is a LISP routine out there that allows you to use the BLOCKREPLACE command on multiple blocks at once. That may be your best bet.

Thank you very much for the replies. I had previoiusly come accross this thread http://www.cadtutor.net/forum/archive/index.php/t-54173.html so was hoping uploading the file would get me a quick fix

I have tried 'UnAnon.lsp' which I found here http://www.draftsperson.net/index.php?title=Anonymous_Blocks_in_AutoCAD

Also tried RAG.Lsp which I found here http://www.draftsperson.net/index.php?title=RAG_-_Remove_AutoCAD_anonymous_groups

When I try the UnAnon I can only select one block at a time, and it returns "Not An Anonomynous Block".

When I try the RAG.lsp it states "0 anonymous groups deleted from 10 group (s)".

I'm very much out of my depth here (had never run lsp before now . If anyone can come up with a specific solution it would be very much appreciated. Otherwise if anyone is interested in figuring this out for a reasonable fee, please contact me.

Thank you.

*A would be an anonymous GROUP.

We had a thread on that not long ago. I'm busy at the moment, maybe you can find something.

Reproduced from www.draftsperson.net

*U### = anonymous blocks

*E### = anonymous non-uniformly scaled blocks

*X### = anonymous hatches

*D### = anonymous dimensions

*A### = anonymous groups

Thank you everyone for your replies. I had posted a reply but got a message that it was to be reviewed by administrator. Maybe because I had some links in there?

Anyways I've tried a few lisp routines that I've found on the web (RAG, and UnAnon) to no avail, and have tried to get some more information on Anonymous groups. However I was hoping there was a nice easy solution as I am not an advanced ACAD user. I had not previously run any autolisp previously, so I got my one new thing for the day in .

If anyone there is interested in looking at this for a reasonable fee, please contact me. I'm imagining/hoping in the right hands it's easily handled.

Thank you again for your replies.

Over at http://www.dotsoft.com/freestuff.htm he has a free lisp called blkrenanon.vlx.

I found a rename_anonblock.lsp in my files that should work the same as the one from dotsoft.

This will let you rename one *A anonymous block. Then you could use another lisp that lets you replace multiple blocks with one name.

I would run the blkrenanon on each unique block (sprinklerup, sprinklerdn, elbow, etc. and then use the replace multiple lisp file, running that for each type of block.

The files attached are not mine, if the author had their name in the file it has been kept there, otherwise it was from a newsgroup and they didn't bother putting their name in the file.

REName_AnonBLocK.lsp

REPlaceBLOCK.LSP

See THIS THREAD.

Thank you all for the replies!!

rkent, I was able to use the lsp routines that you provided so thank you very much for those!! Afraid not quite up and running here yet though as it only allows for the renaming of the blocks to be one at a time and I have several thousand of these, and anticpate multiple imports over the course of the project so need to fine a way of handling these in a 'batch style process'. Also, there seems to be 10 groups there somehow, as when I ran the RAG lsp routine it reported - "0 anonymous groups deleted from 10 group (s)". If I could get those groups onto separate layers it may take care of what I need. Since I don't know anything about handling groups I need to get some help with these files. If anyone is interested in doing so for reasonable cost please PM me.

Thank you again for all your help,just don't have time to become a autocad wizard in trying to figure this out:) Very cool skills ye'all have though!

Best Regards.

Is there a way to mark threads as solved? Give people 'thumbs up' or such as I have encountered on other forums? If so can you please link me to the 'Forum Rules' in this regards as I can't seem to find reference to such. Thank you.

Just respond with a Thanks and give your final solution and is found in the emoticons (the button).