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Change same layer in 17 drawings quickly

8 REPLIES 8
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Message 1 of 9
DaveM
608 Views, 8 Replies

Change same layer in 17 drawings quickly

All,

 

I have a situation where I have cut sheets to separate drawings and know I want to change the way a single layer looks in all the drawings. Its quicker to change the layer manually than to import a layer state, but there has to be a quicker way. It seems I have this same battle often. Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,
Dave

Civil 3D 2013
HP Z400 Workstation
6GB of RAM
296GB HDD
ATI FirePro V5700(FireGL)
Win 7 Home Professional
Please use Kudos Where Deserved



8 REPLIES 8
Message 2 of 9
AcadAdamLT
in reply to: DaveM

Look into "Adcenter", I believe there is an easy way of migrating layer settings there.

Just type it into commandline.

 

Hope it helps.

Signature, sincerely... //Adam
AutoCad LT 2016
Give Kudos where credit is due, Mark "accepted as solution" if the post solved your question.
Message 3 of 9
rkmcswain
in reply to: DaveM

No xrefs involved, just the same layer name in each separate drawing?

What layer properties do you want to change?

R.K. McSwain     | CADpanacea | on twitter
Message 4 of 9
DaveM
in reply to: rkmcswain

My current drawing hiarchy is

 

(1) DWG with Many Xrefs as atached.

 

(2) Drawings that xref the above drawing and have titleblocks. Each titleblock has its own drawing.

 

The main problem is I am using my template, but ahve been asked to use someone elses plot style. I printed a drawing with all there line thickness and set my layers as my engineers asked. after creating all the sheets they keep changing the thickness they want the lines to be.

 

Design center allows me to bring in layers that are not there, but if it is there it ignors the def.

 

I have a layer that is color 9 and I want change it to 3 in 17 drawings.

 

For full disclosure, I have already fixed this drawing, but because we work for many clients I find myself doing this often and am hoping there is a better way.

Thanks,
Dave

Civil 3D 2013
HP Z400 Workstation
6GB of RAM
296GB HDD
ATI FirePro V5700(FireGL)
Win 7 Home Professional
Please use Kudos Where Deserved



Message 5 of 9
pendean
in reply to: DaveM

You need a simple script file that mimics what you type at the commandline without the use of pop-ups, and a script processing tool like AUTOSCRIPT from Cadig or Autodesk's own ScriptPro.

-LAYER command (there is a dash in the name) does what you describe, layer color change from 9 to 3.
Message 6 of 9
rkmcswain
in reply to: DaveM

(1) Make the layer color change in your xrefs, set VISRETAIN to 0 in the parent drawing and reload the xrefs.

If that is not an option because you don't want to inherit *other* layer changes, then.....

 

(2) I would create a one line lisp function like this and add it to my "acaddoc.lsp". Each time a drawing is opened, the layer will be updated.

 

(vl-cmdf "._layer" "_C" "12" "0" "")

 

(3) Lastly, if you want to make the change w/o opening each drawing, you could look into using the Core Console to do this.

 

 

R.K. McSwain     | CADpanacea | on twitter
Message 7 of 9
DaveM
in reply to: rkmcswain

I think option 2 might be the ticket. I will give it a shot on my next free moment.

Thanks,
Dave

Civil 3D 2013
HP Z400 Workstation
6GB of RAM
296GB HDD
ATI FirePro V5700(FireGL)
Win 7 Home Professional
Please use Kudos Where Deserved



Message 8 of 9
troma
in reply to: DaveM

Use the commandline version -LAYER to change the colour in one drawing, and record what you do with the action recorder. Then you can play back the macro in any other drawing.

Mark Green

Working on Civil 3D in Canada

Message 9 of 9
dmfrazier
in reply to: DaveM

To add to RKMcSwain's suggestion #2:

If you prefer not to (or can't, for some reason) modify your "normal" acaddoc.lsp file (assuming you have one), or if you don't have one to modify, you can create a unique, single-purpose acaddoc.lsp, containing just the one line of code, and place it in the folder where the dwgs are located. When you open one or more of those dwgs from that folder, AutoCAD will detect and run that acaddoc.lsp first.  If you should need to disable the code, simply rename the file and it won't run automatically.  I've done this either by replacing a character (e.g. change the first "a" to a "b"), or by adding a .TXT extension.  (Be sure to have file extensions visible in your Windows Folder View settings.)

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