Transfer Project to another computer

[twlincoln]

I am not an ACADE user (so please be as descriptive as possible) but I would like to become more familiar.

One company has (2) seats of ACADE2008 and would like to do proposals on one computer and then transfer all the Project, Support & Data (all the drawings & spreadsheets, etc.) from the proposal computer to the work computer to complete and detail the drawings.

What is the method or process to do this without a central server?

What files would be required?

Any do's or don'ts or suggestions are welcome.

Thanks in advance.
--
Tracy Lincoln, TLConsulting
Autodesk Discussion Group Facilitator

[Anonymous]

Fortunately the way AcadE works out of the box, all project related data is
stored in the project folder. The drawings themselves contain the wire and
part number information, after you perform the Lookup and assign part
numbers. The parts data is stored inside the component symbol in something
called an attribute. These particular attributes are named MFG and CAT. If
you simply double-click over a component symbol with vanilla AutoCAD you can
see the complete list of attributes that the component carries as well as
their assigned value.

The other imporant file besides the drawings themselves is the
projectname.WDP file. This files lists the drawings that make up the
electrical project, but also contains project level preferences and symbol
library assignments. There may be other optional files in the folder as
well, such as a projectname_wdtitle.WDL file, which contains the option
prompts for the project line labels that you see when you right-click over a
project name in AcadE and select Descriptions. This information can be
optionally mapped to the title block and AcadE will automatically fill in
your title block(s) for you when you run title block update. The complete
setup of the title block and border template drawing is something you can
learn in an AcadE training course, or from searching the Help system.

In most cases you should be able to simply copy the project folder from PC
to PC and everything associated to the project is copied. If the other
computer has the same symbol libraries installed to the same locations you
can add/edit symbols and part numbers as before. If the parts library
folder and catalog database (default_cat.mdb) are located in a different
path, you can edit the path by right-clicking on the project name in the
Project Manager window and selecting Properties. In the Properties dialog
there are options to assign the symbol libraries.

The project database itself is not something you need to transfer. It is
more of a scratchpad that AcadE uses to expedite certain functions. It is
simply reading the data from the drawings as you work. These databases are
inside the User folder at C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\Application
Data\Autodesk\AutoCAD Electrical 2008\R17.1\enu\Support\User by default.
But they can be deleted and AcadE will recreate them as you open projects.
So when you copy a project to another PC that has AcadE installed, the
project database is created in the background by AcadE. Just remember that
you need not be concerned with this because the data is comping from the
dcrawings themselves. This is one of the features that makes AcadE so
great! It so very simple to share projects, since AcadE stores the data in
the drawing files.

I hope this helps you get a bit of a handle on your situation.

wrote in message news:5820512@discussion.autodesk.com...
I am not an ACADE user (so please be as descriptive as possible) but I would
like to become more familiar.

One company has (2) seats of ACADE2008 and would like to do proposals on one
computer and then transfer all the Project, Support & Data (all the drawings
& spreadsheets, etc.) from the proposal computer to the work computer to
complete and detail the drawings.

What is the method or process to do this without a central server?

What files would be required?

Any do's or don'ts or suggestions are welcome.

Thanks in advance.
--
Tracy Lincoln, TLConsulting
Autodesk Discussion Group Facilitator

[twlincoln]

Doug,

Thank you for the detailed description of the files, their functions and locations this is most excellent information.

--
Tracy Lincoln, TLConsulting
Autodesk Discussion Group Facilitator