Problem when I try to open .dwg file in SharePoint 2010

[rookie_joe]

Hello – I have SharePoint 2010 and DWG TureView 2013 to see .dwg file. I am running into these two issues and any help from you is appreciated.

1. After I upload .dwg file into SharePoint, when I try to open a .dwg file from SharePoint, it doesn’t open it. It just gives me a blank screen. I have tried suggestions on this forum and so far no luck. Any idea how can I click on .dwg file in SharePoint and it opens the file just like it opens any .doc or .xls file?

2. When I check-out .dwg file from SharePoint so I can modify and check back in, I don’t see where SharePoint is checking it out. It doesn’t check-out to place I told it to check out. Any idea where does it check-out to?

Thank you!

[David_Knight]

First just pick "check file out".

once you do that it puts an icon next to it as checked out.

then click on the file name and it will open in autocad.

when done, hit save. and it auto-checks the file back in.  It will likely add a "bak" file to the list.

I never work with sharepoint, but thats how i got it to work on our server.

[rookie_joe]

Hi David - I tried what you have mentioned below but it didnt save changes i made nor it checked itself in automatically. After save and close .dwg file in AutoCAD, i manually checked in the same file but it still didnt save the changes i made.

any other suggestion....

Thanks

[David_Knight]

My only other suggestion is to save it down to a local drive, delete it from sharepoint. Edit your file, and re-upload when done.

Our office doesn't use sharepoint at all though, we've moved to dropbox and other file-sharing solutions.  

[rookie_joe]

yes, i did thought of that. if nothing works, i will have my business people do that. unfortuantely it is not as clean as check-in and check-out feature but still better than nothing. 🙂

how do you guys do this on DropBox? do you just download .dwg file, make changes and then upload it back?

thank you again for your suggestions!

[David_Knight]

When you install the dropbox application on your pc, it copies the entire dropbox folder to your local harddrive and monitors it for changes.  It will upload and download files as they are modified.  

Not sure what would happen if you had a lot of people working on it at the same time (say 9-10?) and 1 file is modified by 2 people simultaneously.  Sharepoint - you can control access by deleting it and re-uploading it when completed.  On Dropbox if its a large file and you hit save, it has to sync up which can take a second or two if you have a fast connection, or perhaps it takes longer if you have a slow connection.  But then the people who use dropbox too - their applications have to be notified (automagically) and then the app downloads the modified files.

We did not like sharepoint because of the load it put on our server.  We used it for storing and distributing PDF drawing sets.  The server was constantly slow to respond and since we only have a 2mb upload pipe client downloads took a while.   At no cost, we moved to dropbox and removed our server strain, and freed up our upload speeds.  We haven't needed more than 2GB of data on dropbox (when you start to pay for it).  Additionally our clients are much happier.

[Evgeny1111]

Web CAD SDK enables you to view DWG files in SharePoint: http://cadsofttools.com/products/web_cad_sdk/