Architecture 2012 to 2007...KABOOM!

[steveco37]

Hello all...my firm is running AutoCAD Architecture 2012 and our San Diego branch is rocking 2007.

When I "export to autocad 2007" and our san diego office opens it up...all walls, windows, doors get flattened down to 2d linework and hatches...no annotative scaling, no display configurations, text disappears into squares and rectangles.

When I just "Save As" a 2007.dwg format and the san diego office opens it up, the display configurations come back, walls work as walls but the wall type hatching is gone, text is still squares, AND all the doors and windows are now missing and replaced with squares!

Is there any way to produce a file they can open that has working doors, windows, walls and text?

Thanks for any help...but please HEEEELLLLPPPPP!!!

[Jack_O'neill]

One of the problems with saving down is that not all of the fancy features in the new version readily convert to the old version. I've had a similar problem saving down from vanilla Autocad 2010 to 2004 for one of my customers. Mleaders do not translate, for instance. What you will probably have to do unless you can convince them to upgrade is to use the older entities. Going back the mleaders for instance...I have to use the old "leader" command instead of mleader when I wish to save down. You'll probably have to experiment with ways of generating geometry to find something that works with your other office.

[steveco37]

Jack...is there any way to convert these items to an older version. IE: leaders and text, doors etc. with say a match properties command or something. Rather than just redrawing everything in a dumbed down version?

[Jack_O'neill]

Short answer...I don't know. I haven't found anything that works other than that, but I only have one customer that I have to do this for. Curiously, it's my largest one, and they are one of the largest companies in the business. Don't know why they are still on 2004 but they are. I had to go through a bunch of pages of drawings and replace mleaders with leaders, and some other stuff that I can't even remember it all now. I created a custom profile for working on their stuff so I wouldn't use anything that they couldn't see. All the work for them is 2d anyway so I didnt find everything that wouldn't work. That was over a year ago...all I can say is good luck.

As it happens, I have Arch 2007 here on another machine. If you want to try stuff out, feel free to email me here and I'll see if i can help you.

[ReMark]

Think of the time and effort you are putting into this problem of trying to "back save" to 2007 file format and the trouble it is causing compared to a software upgrade. I would think the correct answer would be obvious.

[pendean]

The info above is incomplete.
All verticals, including Architecture, never EVER maintain AEC content between DWG-different versions, no matter how many ways you can think of saving down.
A software fact and totally different from the plain AutoCAD replies you received so far.
For you to share files with your other office you need to be using their old software, or you all need to upgrade together.
I am very surprised your reseller did not inform you of this, or you did not research it, it has been around since I got stung the same way back in ADT2004.

[ReMark]

Why two offices of the same company would be so far apart in the versions they are running of the same program is puzzling to me. Someone (a bean-counter?) probably thought it would save money.

[Jack_O'neill]

Why two offices of the same company would be so far apart in the versions they are running of the same program is puzzling to me. Someone (a bean-counter?) probably thought it would save money.

I'd bet money on that being the problem. One of the places I worked for years ago actually rolled back an upgrade at 2 locations because of what they called "compatibility issues". Seems that the negotiated price to upgrade the other 9 locations was incompatible with what they wanted to spend!

[SLW210]

Are both versions Architecture, or is it 2012 Architecture and 2007 AutoCAD?

[steveco37]

Well...no one has ever claimed Architects are good businessmen...me venting on how this place is run is another (very long) post. I guess what puzzles me is how basic things like "out of the box" doors and windows don't have a backward compatibility function within their own family. I realize that some of the attributes and metric abilities of a basic door might not work from 2012 down to 2007, but I know 2007 still had a basic DOOR...it still had a PICTURE WINDOW, it still had basic walls!

Doors, windows, walls, mleaders all existed before in a more primitive form, why can't the "save down" just revert these back to a more primitive form? I understand they want you to upgrade, but this idealistic world where every engineer, architect and contractor are all on the latest and greatest release does not exist! This actually hurts their early adopter business.