topic Re: Autocad Layer Password Protect in AutoCAD Forum

Autocad Layer Password Protect

larva_33165 — Thu, 14 Mar 2019 13:46:23 GMT

That's will be a nice feature for the next Autocad 2020 release, a "Individual Layer Password Protect".

Re: Autocad Layer Password Protect

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Mar 2019 13:49:28 GMT

is it original https://cadsoft.pl/oprogramowanie/autodesk/autocad/ ??

Re: Autocad Layer Password Protect

pendean — Thu, 14 Mar 2019 13:49:37 GMT

Why? What exact problem are you trying to solve? and with whom? Explain please.

Re: Autocad Layer Password Protect

larva_33165 — Thu, 14 Mar 2019 16:41:09 GMT

That no one mess the design or modify it, if you send the a drawing to others....is this difficult to understand.

Re: Autocad Layer Password Protect

pendean — Thu, 14 Mar 2019 17:33:59 GMT

In your office? Set up corporate standards and do a lot of training.

With outside vendors or clients? wouldn't they just call you and ask you for the password so they can edit your files? Or terminate your services for not providing them with what you need?

Sounds like you need a solid contract with these others to control your intellectual property: they can get around your magical password request anytime by plotting to a vector PDF and converting it back into AutoCAD for free. Every. Single. Time.

Talk to your company Legal Counsel or your Professional Liability Insurance agent about how to properly protect your drawings.

Good Luck.

Re: Autocad Layer Password Protect

nikm42Q9N — Thu, 14 Mar 2019 17:38:56 GMT

password protecting a layer is not possible as we have tired to do this in the past. when we send out drawings we widdle them down to just what the person needs with no stamps or title blocks and put major disclaimers in the email as well as the transmittal sheet that any unapproved modifications made by the sub will make them responsible . if you are sending things out to subs and they are changing stuff then that's all on them and a phone call is in order. if they send say a shop drawing back to use where they moved things to make their scope easier or whatever reason simply reject it and send it back. it not hard to understand its just depending on what you need it for you could go a number of deiffernt direations

I would look into exrefs see link from another post

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/autocad-forum/is-locking-layer-with-password-protection-possible/td-p/2621860

Re: Autocad Layer Password Protect

WarrenGeissler — Thu, 14 Mar 2019 18:28:02 GMT

You can always put a wish into Autodesk feedback:

https://www.autodesk.com/company/contact-us/product-feedback

However as others have said, this is really easy to bypass.

If it's legal protection you are looking for then you should look into Digital Signatures.

Re: Autocad Layer Password Protect

s.borello — Thu, 14 Mar 2019 18:43:57 GMT

Horrible idea.

Re: Autocad Layer Password Protect

gotphish001 — Thu, 14 Mar 2019 20:49:11 GMT

Anything you can do, someone else can just as easily undo. As Dean said it's easy to get around this. We do what was mentioned too. I only send a minimum of the drawing that the person needs. If they don't need to add things to it and just see it then I send them a PDF and not the dwg. Or I'll make a base drawing with only the things they need, but also send them a pdf of the full drawing. That way if they aren't sure what something is in the dwg they can look at the full pdf set to make sense of it. They also can't change random things that don't pertain to them that I might not catch because everything they don't need is in the pdf set.