How to open a password protected drawing via Visual LISP?

**Ahankhah** · 22nd Jun 2011 07:45 am

CADTutorians,

Does anyone know whether it is possible to open a password protected drawing via Visual LISP, and for positive answer how?

**MSasu** · 22nd Jun 2011 08:37 am

This may do the trick:

Code:

(setq theDocsObj (vla-get-documents (vlax-get-acad-object)))
(vla-activate (vla-open theDocsObj MyFileName :vlax-false MyPassword))

Regards,
Mircea

**Ahankhah** · 22nd Jun 2011 08:39 am

Excellent Mircea

.
Thanks a lot

.

**MarcoW** · 23rd Jun 2011 08:10 am

Just hopping in, can you give me an example how to protect and unprotect a drawing? I am curious how it works.
Thanks in advance!

**Ahankhah** · 23rd Jun 2011 09:42 am

Originally Posted by MarcoW

Just hopping in, can you give me an example how to protect and unprotect a drawing? I am curious how it works.
Thanks in advance!

1- Issue SAVEAS command
2- In the Save Drawing As dialog, open Tools menu in the upper right of the window.
3- Select Security Options... item.
4- In the new dialog, under the Password tab, you can set, change, or remove password for the current drawing.

**ReMark** · 23rd Jun 2011 10:50 am

All that really does is prevent someone from opening a drawing. It does not prevent a person from editing a drawing once it is opened. Don't forget the password either as there is no means to brute force the drawing open.

**MarcoW** · 23rd Jun 2011 11:21 am

Thanks, I did not realize it was that kind of protection, like in word and excel.
I have no intentions to use this however. Thanks again for the explaining!

**Ahankhah** · 23rd Jun 2011 06:44 pm

Originally Posted by ReMark

All that really does is prevent someone from opening a drawing. It does not prevent a person from editing a drawing once it is opened. Don't forget the password either as there is no means to brute force the drawing open.

Originally Posted by MarcoW

Thanks, I did not realize it was that kind of protection, like in word and excel.
I have no intentions to use this however. Thanks again for the explaining!

Assume that you have a protected dwg file containing some blocks, hatches, linetypes, etc. and you want to use them just by your program. It is a good way to do the task. So you don't need to enclose *.pat or *.lin with your program...

But one thing is remaining. How is it possible to insert a protected .DWG file into another drawing?

**ReMark** · 23rd Jun 2011 06:59 pm

You want to password protect a drawing then insert it into another drawing? Why? Would good would that be?

**Ahankhah** · 23rd Jun 2011 07:16 pm

Originally Posted by ReMark

You want to password protect a drawing then insert it into another drawing? Why? Would good would that be?

I want to use some encrypted info in it.

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