Bring content of XREF "into" drawing file

[Whitney_Akers]

Sorry for my ignorance of the lingo, but I'm new to 3D, xrefs, and a bunch of the higher-level CAD stuff.

I have a file which is xref-ing several other files (on a by-component basis). It works for viewing and printing, but the XREF processing and/or 3d rendering bog down my machine to the point where drawing anything in the file is an exercise in frustration.

Is there any way for me to copy the XREFS out of my main file and paste them into another file, not as xrefs, but as geometry native to the second file? I find that once I take the XREF stuff out of the equation, my machine can handle more complex 3D models.

Thanks in advance!

[pendean]

You described one method: copy/paste, the classic Windows function 🙂

[Whitney_Akers]

I tried this, but the objects were still xrefs when they landed in my new drawing. I was using ctrl-shift-c and ctrl-shift-v. When I attempt the regular "shiftless" copy and paste, they come into the new drawing as broken xrefs, only showing the file names which they reference.

[Kent1Cooper · Accepted solution]

If they're not already in the second drawing, use Insert instead of Xref.  If they are, use Xref's Bind option to make them "native" to the second drawing [be aware of the Bind options -- "Bind" to have things like Layer and Block names prefaced with the name of the drawing they came from, "Insert" to have them without preface, provided you don't have something like a Layer or Block name used in both drawings that are defined differently and that you want to keep different].

[M_Hensley]

If you only need some of the objects from the xref you can use NCOPY to bring those objects in from the xref then detach the xref to get rid of it.