Updating drawing template in AutoCAD LT

[Garry_Lelliott]

I seem to recall there is a method of substituting old drawing templates with the latest version on open drawings, but for the life of me can neither remember what the command is or enter anything into the ACAD Help search that results in anything remotely useful!

Can any of you LT gurus refresh my aged memory please??

[Charles_Shade]

When you do a SaveAs click on the Files of Type at the bottom and choose DWT.

Then you can save the file to whatever name you wish and update the Template.

This new DWT is saved in the version of LT that you are currently using.

[Garry_Lelliott]

Ah, I obviously didn't explain my predicament clearly enough! I don't want to save a file as a DWT, I want to be able to replace an existing drawing template block with its latest version.

We have a corporate drawing template which has changed over the years to reflect the changes in corporate identity.

On earlier drawings, we used Issues A to D of said template, but are now on Issue E.

When revising a drawing, one of the actions is to replace the Issue A-D template with the Issue E version so that the latest corporate identity is present.

This is currently done by opening a new drawing (with QNEW being set to latest issue template), then opening the existing drawing, copy everything from the model space of the existing drawing and paste it into the model space of the new drawing, edit the attributes of the new drawing template to that of the existing drawing, complete and append to the revision history section of the new drawing and save it back to the relevant folder as the latest issue of the drawing.

In short, I want to replace the block  TP-1021-A/D with TP-1021-E, where TP-1021 is our internal template reference number, in a more efficient way than described above, and am pretty sure there is a way of effectively substituting one drawing template block for another, but cannot recall how to do it.

[hwalker]

Use the following steps

1. Make sure your new template is in a drawing

2. -INSERT (Note the dash at the front. This is important.

3. When it asks for block name put in the following "OLDTEMPLATE=FULLPATH\NEWTEMPLATE.

3a. Please note that where I have put capitals you put in the relevant information for the files and their location.

4. When it asks if you wish to redefine you answer yes.

You can then end the command as you have redefined your old block and are in the process of inserting another version of it

[Garry_Lelliott]

I have tried the command as suggested but only get the viewport and the pre-defined attributes (title, drawing number, revision etc.) from the new template. None of the lines or text are visible, but if I go to the block editor, the new template is shown exactly as it should be (see attached DWG). It doesn't help that my IT department have just moved over to virtual servers, making the full file path ridiculously long!

I seem to recall the process of updating the drawing template was relatively simple, but that was several years ago, on an earlier version of LT, and one of my senior colleagues, now retired, was showing me how it was done!

[hwalker]

Unfortunately I only have LT2009 and cannot convert the file down to have a look at it

[pendean]

You seem to be mis-using the TEMPLATE file type/name for the rest of us AutoCAD users: you just want to replace an old block in a file with a another block in the same file, nothing more. Correct?

Or are you wanting to INSERT both the modelspace content and the paperspace content in your current file with content from the other 116233-1 file? It;s a two step process if you want to do both, old LT or current LT version.

[Garry_Lelliott]

Curiouser and curiouser. We use LT2000 as a standard format as many of our sub-contractors have not updated LT for some time!

[Garry_Lelliott]

That is correct. The drawing frame (I won't use the term template from here on in) is a block, saved as a DWT file, and needs to be changed from whatever old version is used to the latest version when updating legacy drawings.

I wish to retain the entire model space content of whatever file has been opened and (simply) update the drawing frame.

Does that make more sense??

[sthompson1021]

Hi, something you can try is to insert the new titleblock into your drawing then open it in block editor. Do a save as with the old title block name and when it asks if you want to redifine existing block say yes.

[Garry_Lelliott]

Hmm, I think I ought to attach a typical 'before-and-after' drawing for everyone to see.

I think I should also have mentioned that the drawing frame is applied to the paper space, not the model space.

[sthompson1021]

Hi, I was able to redifine the block A3 Title Block by inserting the layout from the second DWG and then doing a save as in the block editor. The problem is that some of the attributes don't line up with the new title block. You have to do a little editing to make it work but it's not to bad.

[sthompson1021]

Forgot to attach the dwg.

[pendean]

ATTSYNC command should help the attributes update I believe (have not tried it with the posted files though).

[Garry_Lelliott]

Looking at the attached drawing, that is kind of where I want to end up, but the process described isn't as simple as I recall it to be!

I know my memory isn't playing tricks on me, so I might have to resort to contacting the colleague who showed me the process in the first place, assuming he can tear himself away from enjoying his retirement!!

I really appreciate the time and effort everyone has given to this post, and thank you all for your input, but think I am stuck with my 'blunt instrument' approach for the time being.

[steven-g]

It sounds like you are wanting to update the title block, I haven't got access to autocad at the moment, but if memory serves, you want to have the 'design centre' toolbar open and both the old and new drawings open, have the old drawing as the active window in autocad and then find the new title block in the 'design centre' tree, right clicking should give you the option to either insert the block - to insert and redifine the block - or just redifine the block. And that should be what you want, so long as you haven't changed the name of the title block.

[patrick_bering]

Garry Lelliot, I am facin the SAME problem you had. I basically want to be able to update a .dwt and want the layouts using this template to be modified accordignly to the changes I've made.

i.e.: I overwrite the original .dwt after I have, let's say, modified the width of a rectangle or updated the logo of the company, etc. I would want to have my drawing layouts updated (for a large sheetset containing several layouts) automatically.

I know It has been more than 2 years since the last reply, but I was wondering if your retired colleague had given you his way to do it.

Best regards,

Patrick R.

[pendean]

The T in the dwt extension name of the file tells Windows to not allow you to overwrite it. Change the extension to DWG and you can do all you want: change it back to DWT when you are done.

BUT... there is no ability in AutoCAD/LT to magically replace all layouts in all files based on this template file change. You should have and should be XREFing titleblocks into your DWG files to make such edits and changes a lot easier to do.