topic Re: Plotting a Full file name. in AutoCAD Forum

Plotting a Full file name.

aaroNVK33B — Mon, 25 Sep 2023 22:43:28 GMT

Hey Everyone - Following is my issue

I save my files in the following directory C:\Users\user\Documents\. Every time when I want to plot my drawings to pdf it gives me the following prompt "The full file name cannot be 225 characters" even though file name is less than 20 characters. How can I fix this?

Re: Plotting a Full file name.

Gabriel_Watson — Tue, 26 Sep 2023 01:19:12 GMT

Full file name is the entire folder path + file name. It's a Windows limitation, not related to a particular software. Windows may lose the ability to edit files buried under a path that is too long.

I can see you are saving this PDF in a folder other than Documents. It seems that "230925 - For Solar & Racking" may be located in a network drive or local drive that is too long. You will need to summarize/cut some of the extra characters or just plot your file to another folder.

If you can't be constrained under reasonably-sized long path names, try changing the Windows restriction via registry:
https://www.autodesk.com/support/technical/article/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/The-Windows-10-default-path-length-limitation-MAX-PATH-is-256-characters.html

Re: Plotting a Full file name.

Simon_Weel — Tue, 26 Sep 2023 07:01:21 GMT

Full file name is the entire folder path + file name. It's a Windows limitation, not related to a particular software.

To be more precise, it's not a Windows problem. Windows can create file / path names as long as you want. It's Explorer being limited to about 260 characters. Most applications will allow those long file names, including Microsofts own applications like Word and Excel. So I'm surprised to see this message popping up in AutoCAD.

This is well known and long standing problem with Windows Explorer, and it's still not solved in Windows 11.

Re: Plotting a Full file name.

Michiel.Valcke — Tue, 26 Sep 2023 12:49:06 GMT

@Simon_Weel
It is actually fixed, newer systems will have the longer than 256 (seems like a familiar number) character limit ignored, and you can set it yourself starting from Windows version 1607.

You can read how in the link @Gabriel_Watson shared

Re: Plotting a Full file name.

Simon_Weel — Wed, 27 Sep 2023 06:37:30 GMT

I know, but like I said; Explorer is the problem. Microsoft somehow manages to 'forget' about allowing Explorer to handle long file names....