topic Re: AutoCAD - Is it possible to close a drawing without "having to save it" when no changes were made, but when only zoom was used? in AutoCAD LT Forum

AutoCAD - Is it possible to close a drawing without "having to save it" when no changes were made, but when only zoom was used?

343-27475796 — Thu, 20 Oct 2022 13:33:53 GMT

Hello,

I was wondering if it is possible to not "having to save" a drawing when all I did was zoom through the drawing.
Because sometimes I keep a drawing opened for a period of time (and maybe saved it right after I made any changes) while working on other drawings and then I come back to the (probably saved) drawing and only scroll/zoom through it to just take a look at the drawing I get confused if I already saved any actually changes I made earlier or not, because AutoCAD asks me if I want to save the drawing.
Right now, when I scroll/zoom through a drawing even once AutoCAD asks me if I want to save the drawing when I want to close it as the program apparently considers it a change in the drawing even when I didn't actually changed anything in the drawing itself.

So what I would want is the program to behave the same as when I open a drawing and I close it without actually doing anything (not using any command or use scroll/zoom).
In that case it immediately closes the drawing, without asking me if I want to save the drawing.

Thanks in advance for any reply!

Greeting Marco

[ The subject line of this post has been edited to include the product name by @handjonathan ]

Re: Is it possible to close a drawing without "having to save it" when no changes were made, but when only zoom was used?

pendean — Thu, 20 Oct 2022 12:16:16 GMT

No sorry, nothing built-in gives you that option: in AutoCAD, anything you do in a file, and I mean anything, is considered a change.

If you only ever need to view drawings (and print), use the free DWGTRUEVIEW viewer from Autodesk https://www.autodesk.com/viewers

You can also create a special Macro button (or SCRIPT file) to close the file and pre-answer no: but it would be a special button, requires special action, nd only tapping it will close without saving. Using the viewer seems easier to me, but hey. CLOSE and QUIT are the core command if you want to take a stab at it.

Betreff: Is it possible to close a drawing without "having to save it" when no changes were made, but when only zoom was used?

cadffm — Thu, 20 Oct 2022 12:31:07 GMT

Hi,

first, you have to understand that any change, also a changed 'view'(!), is a change.

Just one sample:

Think about you are working in Layout and you saved the work,

but you see a need to edit the view(port) a bit more!

You using just zoom and pan inside the viewport, now your Layout is perfect.

But you used just Zoom&Pan... and what you want would skip these changes by pressing "close" 😕

Answer: There is no setting for that, but you can write your own "close" Macro&script (your own Button to press for Qsave),

this macro works 99% the way you want.

^C^C^C$M=$(if,$(=,$(fix,$(/,$(getvar,dbmod),2.0)),$(/,$(getvar,dbmod),2.0)),_.SCRIPT;"D:/fastclose.scr",_.QSAVE)

The content of this "fastclose.scr" is only two lines and the second one is empty - means: Do a enter after the first line ans saveas fastclose.scr:

--------------------------------

_.CLOSE _no

-------------------------------

Betreff: Is it possible to close a drawing without "having to save it" when no changes were made, but when only zoom was used?

343-27475796 — Thu, 20 Oct 2022 13:21:42 GMT

Thanks for your replies @pendean and @cadffm ,

But my "issue" is not that I think it takes me too long to close a drawing, but that I don't want to save a drawing everytime I have only looked at it (especially after I have saved the changes I made earlier).
And I don't want to close the drawing everytime I have saved my changes.
I would like AutoCAD to keep track of whether I did or did not actually make changes to the drawing after a save and when I haven't made changes that AutoCAD doesn't ask me to save the drawing.

I agree @cadffm that it could possibly lead to an "error" when the properties of a layout is changed like you said.
To be honest I think this could be a tricky thing too.

But that's why I posted my question, so other people could give me a sollution OR a reason why I should not want this in the first place 😁

Greetings Marco

Betreff: Is it possible to close a drawing without "having to save it" when no changes were made, but when only zoom was used?

pendean — Thu, 20 Oct 2022 13:32:26 GMT

2343-27475796 No sorry, nothing built-in gives you that option.

If you only ever need to view drawings (and print), use the free DWGTRUEVIEW viewer from Autodesk https://www.autodesk.com/viewers

Or find a different CAD program from a different software vendor that has these features you need to do your work: always look out for #1 (that's you) all the time my friend.

Betreff: Is it possible to close a drawing without "having to save it" when no changes were made, but when only zoom was used?

cadffm — Thu, 20 Oct 2022 13:48:30 GMT

It sounds you you didn't test my offered workaround (workaround: use a button with my macro&script sample)

Betreff: Is it possible to close a drawing without "having to save it" when no changes were made, but when only zoom was used?

343-27475796 — Thu, 20 Oct 2022 14:36:21 GMT

Hello Sebastian,

I have tried to use that macro, but didn't get it to work properly.
I'm not so familiar with macro's, so I have to try this later when I have a bit more time on my hands.

Greetings Marco

Betreff: Is it possible to close a drawing without "having to save it" when no changes were made, but when only zoom was used?

bob_mpc — Thu, 20 Oct 2022 14:51:03 GMT

As a workaround - you can click on the down arrow next to UNDO button, and just look what commands were executed up to the last QSAVE.

Betreff: Is it possible to close a drawing without "having to save it" when no changes were made, but when only zoom was used?

343-27475796 — Thu, 20 Oct 2022 14:56:29 GMT

Hello @bob_mpc ,

I hope someone has another solution, but as a workaround that is a really good solution to my issue.

Greetings Marco

Re: AutoCAD - Is it possible to close a drawing without "having to save it" when no changes were made, but when only zoom was used?

bob_mpc — Thu, 20 Oct 2022 15:04:04 GMT

I agree it is somewhat boring to have to save just for pan/zoom, but on the other side, as someone mentioned above, a pan or zoom may be actually a change - a different appearance of a viewport. And, at least here, when it comes to creating the final plot/pdf files, nobody has the time to actually check if they are OK, and mistakes are seen with the invoice for printing of "n" copies 😞

So, I don't really think that what you want is possible, at least currently.

Re: AutoCAD - Is it possible to close a drawing without "having to save it" when no changes were made, but when only zoom was used?

h_s_walker — Thu, 20 Oct 2022 15:31:55 GMT

@343-27475796

Put the attached text file in C:\Users\%your username\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\AutoCAD LT 2016\R22\enu\Support

The bold part needs to be your version of AutoCAD. Then create a button and put the text in the command string section with the qclose.scr (you need to change the extension of the attached file from .txt to .scr) file tagged onto the end. Don't forget to change the backslashes into forward slashes. See the image below

Betreff: Is it possible to close a drawing without "having to save it" when no changes were made, but when only zoom was used?

343-27475796 — Fri, 21 Oct 2022 12:14:44 GMT

Hello Sebastian,

I have created the macro, but what it does is fastclose the drawing after first saving it.
But that's not what I was looking for.

As I see it the solution that @bob_mpc mentioned works probably best for me as it shows me what command(s) I have used since my last save and therefore I can also see if I did anything else then just zooming/panning.

Thanks though for your input.
I truly appreciate it.

Greetings Marco

Betreff: Is it possible to close a drawing without "having to save it" when no changes were made, but when only zoom was used?

Paul_Gander — Sun, 23 Oct 2022 10:17:57 GMT

@343-27475796 wrote:
I have created the macro, but what it does is fastclose the drawing after first saving it.

The command line prompt after the close command in the script is:

Really want to discard all changes to drawing? <N>

The correct response should be yes in order to close without saving. (This is the opposite of the response to the dialog box question.)