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Read CTB file from DWG Externally

9 REPLIES 9
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Message 1 of 10
trevortilbury
1252 Views, 9 Replies

Read CTB file from DWG Externally

Hello,

 

I was curious if anyone knew of a way to read what CTB file is set in a DWG without opening the DWG itself. We want to see what CTBs are being used by our drawings, which are numerous, as are our CTBs.

 

Ideally a mechanism to run through our directories via a script would be preferred.

 

Has anyone fulfilled this? I was looking for external apps but to little avail.

 

Thank you,

 

Trevor M Tilbury

Drafting Manager,  Geomatics

9 REPLIES 9
Message 2 of 10
dgorsman
in reply to: trevortilbury

Maybe try the Reference Manager?

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If you are going to fly by the seat of your pants, expect friction burns.
"I don't know" is the beginning of knowledge, not the end.


Message 3 of 10
abubakars
in reply to: trevortilbury

Could you please give more details of your requirement, so I can try to help you in this week end with some sort of solution

1. List only information of ctb files associated with model and layouts individually or all  ctb file references exist in any drawing

2. Do you want to list no of page setups exist in any drawing as well?

3.Do you like to further dig into each page setup and list assigned ctb file?

 

Message 4 of 10
trevortilbury
in reply to: abubakars

Thank you for the replies.

 

What I am looking for is some sort of script or mechanism to run through directories, find DWG files and export it's CTB(s) name to a txt or csv.

 

As recommended above the Reference Manager does that well but on somewhat of a singular basis as you have to load each DWG manually. It has been helpful however. It would be nice to run that command with parameters from a command line and therefore use it in a script.

 

The reason for all this is I would like a list of any CTB referenced in a number of drawings and locations such that any unused CTB files can be moved elsewhere.

 

I don't know if anyone else had this need in the past.

 

Thanks again for everyone's time.

Message 5 of 10
dgorsman
in reply to: trevortilbury

You can shift/control click to add multiple drawings from a single folder, as well as add additional drawings to the list.  Unless you are referring to something else...?

 

You might also be able to use the eTransmit mechanism from inside AutoCAD.

 

I've had the same problem during my first major AutoCAD upgrade.  With the number of drawings we have, it made more sense to simply dump the existing CTBs and create new ones along with named page set-ups pointing to them.  Any drawings which were still pointing to the old files were changed manually as users worked on them, since it only needed to be done once (and then, only if they ignored the named page set-ups).

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If you are going to fly by the seat of your pants, expect friction burns.
"I don't know" is the beginning of knowledge, not the end.


Message 6 of 10
trevortilbury
in reply to: dgorsman

Thanks again for the replies.

 

Our main issue is we have a fairly deep directory structure which has been modified several times over the years. If have done scripting to cycle through similar structures to do specific operations on other files, but the crux of this thread was to find a mechanism to get the CTBs out of a DWG without opening it and to compile all CTBs in a list.

 

The reference manager is a touch tedious as you have to select directories to find individual DWGs. It does allow for multiple ones open at the same time but as mentioned, it can be time-consuming with the amount of DWGs I which to fulfil this operation on and the locations which they exist.

 

Again, thanks!

Message 7 of 10
abubakars
in reply to: trevortilbury

Could you please give more detail about your AutoCAD version and 32/64 bit?.

I am developing in .Net that should be compiled to version specific.

 

 

 

Message 8 of 10
abubakars
in reply to: trevortilbury

You can extract Plot style information (ctb/stb) from Drawings without opening them, Try the free BatchInDatabase tool available in the link http://www.CADManagerTools.com and see the Video Demonstration plot style extraction for details  of how to use the command. for details of other built-in commands refer to help file and video demos.

 

 please note, the new additon of command (PlotStyle-Report") is available now only in BatchInDatabase 1.0 and 2.0 64-bit

 

Video-Plotstyle-Report.PNG

 

 

hope this will help you to get what you were looking for.

 

 

Message 9 of 10
AllenJessup
in reply to: trevortilbury

You can download tools to read CTBs and other files HERE But I don't think they will read which one is set in a drawing.

 

Allen Jessup



Allen Jessup
Engineering Specialist / CAD Manager

Message 10 of 10
abubakars
in reply to: trevortilbury

FYI

The Free tools from http://www.CADManagerTools.com are available to download from Autodesk Exchange Apps.

currently there are three applications added to Autodesk Exchange Apps and many  more to come.

1. BatchInDatabase

2. BatchInEditor

3. Dxf2Dwg

all are completely free ,No limitation in usage, no string attached and no $

Easy to use and powerful built-in commands, you can be less dependent on writing lisp and scripts,

Give it a try and give your feedback on these tools

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