topic Re: Lowercase Block Names in AutoCAD Forum

Lowercase Block Names

DAVIDDEARDORFF6551 — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 17:41:46 GMT

Is anyone else having their block names changing to lowercase again? I remember this happening about ten years ago and it got fixed with the next update, Not so this time.

Re: Lowercase Block Names

rkmcswain — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 17:55:23 GMT

So you open a drawing, and all of the block names are now lowercase?

What changed between the time it was not doing this and now?

AutoCAD updates?

Windows updates?

3rd party apps?

Anyone else work on these drawings?

This is only about 2 years ago, but does this match what you're saying?

Re: Lowercase Block Names

DAVIDDEARDORFF6551 — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 17:59:55 GMT

When I insert a block the name changes to lowercase. No one else works on my drawings. This happened with the 2021 release. I have all recent updates and don't run any 3rd party apps.

Re: Lowercase Block Names

rkmcswain — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 20:50:07 GMT

To confirm, you are running AutoCAD 2021.1 ?

I can confirm it does the same for me. Thanks for clarifying the steps needed to reproduce.

Re: Lowercase Block Names

DAVIDDEARDORFF6551 — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 22:55:13 GMT

Yes. Just installed the update yesterday.

Re: Lowercase Block Names

cadffm — Fri, 14 Aug 2020 00:03:57 GMT

Start an autodesk support case

and feel free to uninstall the 2021.1 update.

Thanks for sharing!

Re: Lowercase Block Names

rkmcswain — Fri, 14 Aug 2020 12:25:38 GMT

As a workaround, do one of the following:

Drag+drop the external .DWG into the editor
Use the -Insert command [(~) after to get the browse dialog.]
Insert from DesignCenter
Insert from a Tool Palette

Re: Lowercase Block Names

rkmcswain — Fri, 14 Aug 2020 12:28:10 GMT

I've also asked one of the developers on twitter, since the new Insert feature was being discussed.

https://twitter.com/cadpanacea/status/1294013764572975105

Why does this import the name of the block in all lowercase, regardless of how the block (the .DWG) file was named on disk?
— R.K. McSwain (@cadpanacea) August 13, 2020

Re: Lowercase Block Names

Kent1Cooper — Fri, 14 Aug 2020 15:00:52 GMT

Until they fix it, as a patch you can run the BUC command [= Block names Upper-Case] defined in the attached BlockNameCase.lsp, modified from my old routine for doing the same to Layer names. [It also defines a BLC command if someone has reason to force them all to Lower Case.]

It could use *error* handling, Undo begin-end wrapping, and command-echo suppression, but hopefully you won't need it often or long enough for those shortcomings to bother you -- maybe I'll work those in some time.

Re: Lowercase Block Names

fatal.error — Fri, 14 Aug 2020 15:08:26 GMT

Have you tried setting the EXTNAMES system variable value to 1?

It controls the characters accepted for the names of blocks, dimension styles, layers, and other named objects.

Value set to 0:

Uses Release 14 parameters, which limit names to 31 characters in length. Names can include the letters A to Z, the numerals 0 to 9, and the special characters dollar sign ($), underscore (_), and hyphen (-).

Value set to 1:

Uses Release 2000 (and later) parameters. Names can be up to 255 characters in length, and can include the letters A to Z, the numerals 0 to 9, spaces, and any special characters not used by the operating system and the product for other purposes.

Re: Lowercase Block Names

DAVIDDEARDORFF6551 — Fri, 14 Aug 2020 15:08:59 GMT

Thanks! That works pretty well.

Re: Lowercase Block Names

DAVIDDEARDORFF6551 — Fri, 14 Aug 2020 15:10:22 GMT

It is set to 1. Thanks.

Re: Lowercase Block Names

rkmcswain — Fri, 14 Aug 2020 15:45:26 GMT

@fatal.error wrote:

Have you tried setting the EXTNAMES system variable value to 1?

EXTNAMES has nothing to do with this case. It's a bug in the new update.

Re: Lowercase Block Names

hhufnagle — Wed, 27 Sep 2023 17:30:37 GMT

Can this lisp be updated to convert to lowercase while maintaining uppercase for the first character of each word?

Re: Lowercase Block Names

Kent1Cooper — Wed, 27 Sep 2023 20:32:30 GMT

@hhufnagle wrote:

Can this lisp be updated to convert to lowercase while maintaining uppercase for the first character of each word?

By "each word," do you mean you have Block names of multiple words with spaces? Or do you mean just the first character of each Block's name?