CNatka Posted October 20, 2011 Share Posted October 20, 2011 Is there any way to convert old version DWG file to new version DWG file( let's say 2008 version files to 2012 version files) so that I can convert old version files to new version files. I have to do the same thing for thousands of files. Hence I want to Automate the conversion process. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anhanguera Posted October 20, 2011 Share Posted October 20, 2011 www.guthcad.com/dwgconvert.htm found this but i didn't try it myself yet. let me know if it works.Also Autodesk has something called DWG TrueView i have used it many times to conver newer versions to olders but didn't convert any older version to a newer one but as autodesk says it has to work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mammajamma Posted October 20, 2011 Share Posted October 20, 2011 You shouldn't have to convert older files. The newer version is perfectly capable of opening older files. When they are subsequently saved, they will be saved as the newer version, unless you have changed the default "save as" format in Options. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Tillman Posted October 20, 2011 Share Posted October 20, 2011 My thinking is similar to mammajamma's. Since you can open the older versions of the dwgs with the newer versions of the software, why would you want to convert all of them, especially thousands of them. I would say to simply open the files as needed and then when you save them they can be in the old or newer format. Unless there is some need for this I think it would simply be a waste of time. And time is money. Now if you had to go the other way to make newer versions of the drawing files compatible with someone who still used Release 14 for example, I could understand that. But the time involved converting thousands of drawings, and I'm assuming there is not a batch process avaiable for this, would be so expensive you might as well update your software. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReMark Posted October 20, 2011 Share Posted October 20, 2011 A waste of time and money "converting" up. But if you have a nothing better to do then download Scriptpro from the AutoDesk website and write a script that will plough through your old drawings, one at a time, and open them in 2012, do a zoom > extents, purge, audit and save. Test one and see how long that takes. Then using that time interval as a rough gauge multiple it by the number of drawings you want to convert. As least you'll have an approximate number to give your boss when he asks, "And how long is this conversion going to take?" Better hope there are no glitches either (like the power going out) in the middle of the process. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack_O'neill Posted October 20, 2011 Share Posted October 20, 2011 I agree with the other guys, there is no advantage to doing this for the version sake alone. If you're inserting a new company logo or something, I might could see it, but for version upgrade alone, you are not really gaining anything. Still, if the boss says do it, it gets done. If you write the script only to open, save, and close you can rip through a couple hundred per hour depending on the speed of your processor/network. I very much recommend adding the stuff Remark mentioned...zoom E, purge and all that. depending on how long the purge and audit takes that will slow it down some. Before you do any of this, make back up copies of every file you are going to work on to a safe location. Different drive, a cd/dvd, something. Never run a batch file on the only copies of the drawings. If something goes wrong, you could become very unpopular very quickly. You'll also need to make sure that no one is working on any of the drawings in the directories you are doing this on too. Keep those unchanged files until you know nothing went wrong. If it were me, I'd copy a couple hundred at a time to a local drive and run the script there. That will keep all that activity off your network, but you will still have to make sure that no one makes any changes to a drawing while you are working on the copy. When you overwrite it, you'll wipe out the changes from the other user. I urge caution because I witnessed this scenario turn to disaster once. Company I was working for changed logos (bought out by someone else, you see) and they hired an outsourcer to come on site and change the logo on all our drawings. He was into it about 5000 drawings deep when he discovered that he typo'd the coordinates and put the logo in the wrong place. He then wrote another script to go through and erase the errant logo and put it in the right place. Only problem was that he was also erasing information under the logo. They let him screw around like this for about a week before the office manager sent him packing. Guess who it fell on to get it fixed....yup..."yours truly". Fortunately they had let me know about a week before that they were going to do this, so I backed everything up on an external drive and hid it in my desk. The logo change was abandoned except for when we needed to send something outside our walls. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CNatka Posted October 21, 2011 Author Share Posted October 21, 2011 Actually I need to do repeatative work on files and convert all files to 64-bit versions from 32-bit versions and hence needs to iterate the process through scripting. Is there some scripting tool specific to AutoCAD other than ScriptPro so that I can use for the purpose?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mammajamma Posted October 21, 2011 Share Posted October 21, 2011 I guess I still don't understand why they need to be converted. We work with older drawings all the time without having to convert at all. 64-bit, 32-bit, doesn't seem to matter. Are you having trouble opening the drawings as they now stand? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
f700es Posted October 21, 2011 Share Posted October 21, 2011 I don't think there is a difference in the file format for this. I run 64-bit 2012 at home and my work 32-bit can open those files without issue. Actually I need to do repeatative work on files and convert all files to 64-bit versions from 32-bit versions and hence needs to iterate the process through scripting. Is there some scripting tool specific to AutoCAD other than ScriptPro so that I can use for the purpose?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SLW210 Posted October 21, 2011 Share Posted October 21, 2011 Actually I need to do repeatative work on files and convert all files to 64-bit versions from 32-bit versions and hence needs to iterate the process through scripting. Is there some scripting tool specific to AutoCAD other than ScriptPro so that I can use for the purpose?? As stated there is NO DIFFERENCE in a 2010 dwg saved with 32-bit and 64-bit, nor will there be a difference in a R14 dwg and the same drawing opened and saved as 2010 dwg except you will need AutoCAD 2010 or newer to open it. I believe LISP Genius Lee Mac has a script program on his site, you can go to his site or try a search here for a link. Why can't you use ScriptPro? There are plenty of script programs for purchase. Moved to the The CUI, Hatches, Linetypes, Scripts & Macros forum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CNatka Posted October 21, 2011 Author Share Posted October 21, 2011 As the work is not decided by me and my big Boss wants me open all the older version files in AutoCAD 64 bit version, create a layer for each file and attach all type of image files in that layer and turn the layer off and then save the file by the name having suffix 64-bit. Hence I need to do that. And the purpose is not very clear to me but the assignment is. Hence want a scripting tool or technique that can solve the purpose. So kindly share the valuable information. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReMark Posted October 21, 2011 Share Posted October 21, 2011 Kindly get yourself over to the AutoDesk website and download ScriptPro. It's free. Then read up on creating a script. Another option would be to use Lee Mac's free Script Writer v1.2 which can be found here...http://lee-mac.com/scriptwriter.html You better test your script real good before committing to changing more than just a handful of drawings. If you don't find out until too late that you got unexpected results you'll be looking for a new job. Where did you say you work? And what is your boss's name? This info will come in handy if one of us wants to apply for the job. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SLW210 Posted October 21, 2011 Share Posted October 21, 2011 As the work is not decided by me and my big Boss wants me open all the older version files in AutoCAD 64 bit version, create a layer for each file and attach all type of image files in that layer and turn the layer off and then save the file by the name having suffix 64-bit. Hence I need to do that. And the purpose is not very clear to me but the assignment is. Hence want a scripting tool or technique that can solve the purpose. So kindly share the valuable information. We have provided you the information you need. You seem to have failed to mention that the files needed to be modified, this is completely different than Is there any way to convert old version DWG file to new version DWG file( let's say 2008 version files to 2012 version files) so that I can convert old version files to new version files. I have to do the same thing for thousands of files. Hence I want to Automate the conversion process. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CNatka Posted October 22, 2011 Author Share Posted October 22, 2011 Sorry for being failed to provide the finer level details for my assignments, but the purpose was clear that I need to do the iterative work for a lot of files. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CNatka Posted October 22, 2011 Author Share Posted October 22, 2011 What other scripting tool can be used for AutoCAD other than ScriptPro and Lee-Mac script writer? Not specifuc to my assignments but I want to have the acknowledgement for the purpose. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack_O'neill Posted October 22, 2011 Share Posted October 22, 2011 You can record a script using any text editor. I use Notepad for small ones. Don't use a word processor or spreadsheet. They will have formatting that will cause your script to crash. Any plain ASCII editor will work fine. You just have to type it all yourself. If you do it that way, just remember that a space will be treated as an "enter". A blank line will be an "enter" as well, and of course the if you "enter" at the end of a line, that's an "enter" too. Do some research in the help files on the various ways to enter commands. You'll want to use the versions that don't cause dialog boxes to open. If this is going to be a long complicated script, you'll want to start out with just a few commands, test the sequence, then add more, test again, just a few at time. Especially if you've never done this before, it can be a struggle to get them to work until you get used to doing it. Everything must be in the right order, spelled correctly, with the right number of "enter" spaces. There is no error trapping in scripts. You will get exactly what you tell the program to do. This is why it is so very important to make copies of all the drawings you are going to work on before you start because there is no going back. If something is wrong, you can't "undo" the things a script does after it closes the drawing. It is critical that you understand that. Whenever and however a drawing is opened, changed and closed, all the undo information is lost. Good luck with it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dana W Posted October 22, 2011 Share Posted October 22, 2011 As the work is not decided by me and my big Boss wants me open all the older version files in AutoCAD 64 bit version, create a layer for each file and attach all type of image files in that layer and turn the layer off and then save the file by the name having suffix 64-bit. Hence I need to do that. And the purpose is not very clear to me but the assignment is. Hence want a scripting tool or technique that can solve the purpose. So kindly share the valuable information. The 64 bit suffix is superfluous. Your boss is making an uneducated assumption that the file storage format and or content is somehow changed by the type of operatring system and/or core processor it is manipulated with. His assumption is incorrect, and will waste time and money by making this task overly complicated. The techie computer geek types got together between 50 and 60 years ago and decided that data files must be universally transportable across all operating systems. Otherwise, the internet would have been impossible to build. I for one will pass on the chance to apply for your job if, for some reason, it should become open. I think I already worked for that guy once too often already. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cad64 Posted October 29, 2011 Share Posted October 29, 2011 Sorry for being failed to provide the finer level details for my assignments, but the purpose was clear that I need to do the iterative work for a lot of files. Actually, the purpose was not clear. Your original post said nothing about doing any work on the files. If you have to create a layer, attach images, etc., then you need something a little more substantial than a simple lisp routine that just opens, saves and closes the drawing. And as others have already stated, converting 2008 files to 2012, or 32 bit to 64 bit, is just a complete waste of time. Unless your boss is just giving you mundane tasks to keep you busy, there is absolutely no reason to do this. This reminds me of when I used to work in machine shops and I would see the old machinist's hazing the new guys. One of the things they would do is tell the new guy to go ask Joe for a "long weight", so the kid would dutifully go over to Joe and tell him that Bob told him to come over and ask for a "long weight". So Joe would say, ok, wait right there. It was funny to watch and see how long the kid would stand there before he got the joke. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack_O'neill Posted October 29, 2011 Share Posted October 29, 2011 This reminds me of when I used to work in machine shops and I would see the old machinist's hazing the new guys. One of the things they would do is tell the new guy to go ask Joe for a "long weight", so the kid would dutifully go over to Joe and tell him that Bob told him to come over and ask for a "long weight". So Joe would say, ok, wait right there. It was funny to watch and see how long the kid would stand there before he got the joke. One of the maintenance guys used to love to send new guys into the machine shop where I worked to borrow a "metric" crescent wrench. Well, one day I just happened to remember that I had one that said 200mm on it, so I handed it to the new guy and sent him on his way. Couple minutes later the older guy came back in there shaking my wrench at me and saying "what do you mean messin' up my favorite joke?" We all busted out laughing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dana W Posted October 29, 2011 Share Posted October 29, 2011 One of the maintenance guys used to love to send new guys into the machine shop where I worked to borrow a "metric" crescent wrench. Well' date=' one day I just happened to remember that I had one that said 200mm on it, so I handed it to the new guy and sent him on his way. Couple minutes later the older guy came back in there shaking my wrench at me and saying "what do you mean messin' up my favorite joke?" We all busted out laughing.[/quote'] Plumbers are forever making the new guy gopher rummage through the van for a metric pipe wrench. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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