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Very frustrated with trying to save a dwg as a dxf.


Treehugger

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I have an architects drawing that was sent to me as a DWG and I am trying to save it as a R12 DXF for uploading to a pocketGIS application on a PDA.

When I try to save the file I get an pop up message that reads "This drawing contains custom objects that are not supported in previous versions. These objects cannot be saved to a previous version etc. etc." When I close this message the drawing saves anyway. However when I try to open it as a DXF in Autocad 2010 I get the following error message "Unloadable shape/text file

Invalid or incomplete DXF input -- drawing discarded." and needless to say I am unable to load it on the PDA.

Can anybody please help me work around this so I have a usable DXF?

Any help greatly appreciated but please be gentle as my CAD skills are truly limited!

 

Thanks

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I think you have to use DXFOUT.

 

You probably will have to 'dumb-down' all of your fonts to simplex before dxfout-ing. Version R12 is OLD SCHOOL. Think simple thoughts.

 

When you get the 'warning message' you will select whatever option means "do it anyway, computer", not cancel. (I don't remember what the options are off-hand.)

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You'll have to dumb down the fonts as the others suggested especially if you are going to the R12 DOS version. R12 for windows supported true type fonts after a fashion, but it didn't do it very well. If you've used any mleaders, they will have to be changed to leaders. Explode any dynamic blocks, as they will not be supported either. There's more stuff to change, but I can't recall it right off the top of my head. A lot of the drawing objects in use today are not backward compatible.

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Thanks for all your responses!

No matter whether I try to save it as a earlier version DWG first or directly using dxf out I get the same message

Autocad2010message.jpg

The message does not give you any clickable options other than cancel and I dont know which option to use and how to carry it out!

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I can't recall if R12 had mtext or not...don't think it did. If not you'll have to change all your mtext to dtext too. My suggestion is make a copy of one of the drawings you want to use,save it down and see what disappears.

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I remember changing .dxf into .dwg without any issues.

 

Not tried changing it back the other way.

 

Simple method I tried (using older versions), was just to change the extension - right click and rename the .dwg bit to .dxf

 

Let me know... 8)

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Myself, that won't work...just changing the file extension will not result in an operable file...you can't change a .doc to a .pdf just by changing the file extension. You need to convert it to the new file format. In this case, there is a conversion to take place. The drawing needs to be simplified to make it backward compatible (e.g. MTEXT, dynamic blocks, TTF, etc.).

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Myself, that won't work...just changing the file extension will not result in an operable file...you can't change a .doc to a .pdf just by changing the file extension. You need to convert it to the new file format. In this case, there is a conversion to take place. The drawing needs to be simplified to make it backward compatible (e.g. MTEXT, dynamic blocks, TTF, etc.).

 

That that is correct. Renaming only works for a .bak file that was created by Autocad. If you need to recover a damaged or lost drawing, you can look for a file with the same name with the .bak extension, change it a .dwg extension and Autocad will open the file. You can not simply change a dwg to dxf...they are two completely different file formats. The dxf is an ascii (or sometimes binary) format that can be used by other cad and graphics programs to exchange files before others had emulated the dwg format.

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Download TruView from Autodesk and save it, then DXF out.

 

That works, but not any better than using Autocad. It's the same saveas engine. If you have the new drawing objects discussed earlier in the drawing, Trueview won't convert them any better than Autocad will.

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You'll have to dumb down the fonts as the others suggested especially if you are going to the R12 DOS version. R12 for windows supported true type fonts after a fashion' date=' but it didn't do it very well. If you've used any mleaders, they will have to be changed to leaders. Explode any dynamic blocks, as they will not be supported either. There's more stuff to change, but I can't recall it right off the top of my head. A lot of the drawing objects in use today are not backward compatible.[/quote']

 

Hmmm. yeah I am not sure where to start with this. I dont know how to do this stuff...........sorry.

Thanks for the response though.

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