Cleaning Up Third Party AutoCAD Drawings with the Export Command

by Hector
(Dallas, TX, United States)

Have you ever received an AutoCAD file from another office that is bogged down information you don't need.

Every discipline imaginable has been added to the drawing, but you only need to see the buildings walls, doors, windows and basic architecture.

If you plan on just plotting what you need, then I suppose freezing off unwanted layers is the way to go, then simply plot.

But if you need to use the drawing file internally, and modify it for your company's needs, then the EXPORT command is your friend.

What I do first when I receive a drawing that has information overload, is freeze the layers I don't need using the Express Tool LAYFRZ (it looks like a little snowflake on the Express Tool bar).

Most of the drawings I get I can freeze off what I don't need to see, however, and I'm sure others can attest to this, there are many drawings I receive that contain entities drawn on layers from Timbuktu. So I always make sure to isolate layers first to make sure someone didn't put certain entities on the wrong layer, before I proceed.

Once I have the drawing looking like it should for my needs, I then use the EXPORT command to create another *cleaner* drawing file.

You could WBLOCK out your entities but I have found EXPORT to be the best at getting rid of those hidden unwanted objects, layers, fonts, etc. It is a real purger, if you will.

Give it a try!