2013 files and older opening in 2020

[Anonymous]

DOES AUTOCAD 2020 AUTOMATICALLY CONVERT OLDER AUTOCAD FILES TO AUTOCAD 2020 AFTER AN EDIT CHANGE AND SAVE?  NOT SAVE AS.  APPARENTLY ANY FILES SENT TO US DONE IN 2013 AND OPENED IN 2020 EDITED AND SENT BACK TO THE USERS USING 2013 WONT OPEN EVEN THOUGH THEY ORIGINATED IN THE 2013 STYLE.  THANKS!

[RobDraw]

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@Anonymous wrote:

DOES AUTOCAD 2020 AUTOMATICALLY CONVERT OLDER AUTOCAD FILES TO AUTOCAD 2020 AFTER AN EDIT CHANGE AND SAVE?

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YES!!!

Export the drawing to the appropriate format.

[Anonymous]

OK, THATS GOOD TO KNOW. MY NEXT QUESTION IS WHY WOULD AUTODESK ALLOW THE SOFTWARE TO DO THAT WHEN, UNLESS YOUR USING 2020, YOU CANT OPEN THE AUTOMATICALLY UPDATED FILE?  IT SHOULD SAVE IN THE ORIGINAL FILE FORMAT IN ORDER TO RPESERVE THE INTEGRITY OF THE FILE.

[jamesmac1201]

Well this methodology applies to any earlier version being saved to a newer version (i.e. 2007>2010; 2010>2013; 2013>2018). If your drawing contains only 2D/3D linework, then I recommend performing an Export operation if the drawing was already saved to 2020. I use Civil 3D, so those special entities need to be converted before I send to a client that doesn't use (or have) Civil 3D. If you haven't saved the drawing after you made your changes, you can perform a save as, then select "Files of type", then choose the 2013 version.

[Anonymous]

LET ME BE A LITTLE MORE SPECIFIC.  A FILE I OPEN IN 2020 WAS CREATED IN 2013, I MADE ONE CHANGE, AND I SAVED IT AND RETURNED THE DRAWING AND NOW THE PEOPLE THAT CREATED IT IN 2013 CANT OPEN IT.  I DID NOT SAVE-AS THE FILE JUST A SIMPLE EDIT AND SAVE. I KNOW THAT IN ORDER TO SAVE-AS/EXPORT CHANGE THE FILETYPE TO 20/20 I CHANGE IT DURING SAVE-AS. BUT I DID NOT DO THAT TO KEEP THE FILE AS 2013.

DID AUTOCAD AUTOMATICALLY CHANGE MY FILETYPE TO 2020? WHY? AND IF THATS THE CASE, HOW DO I KEEP IT FROM DOING THAT?

[jamesmac1201 · Accepted solution]

If you're working on 2020 (same for 2018 and 2019) and you save the drawing (also save-as), the drawing will be converted to a 2018 version. In order to prevent this, you need to perform a save-as, then select "File of Type" pull down, then select the appropriate version (in your case "AutoCAD 2013/LT 2013 Drawing").

Because you're in a newer version of AutoCAD, just selecting save will update your drawing.

If you already saved the drawing to a newer version inadvertently, then you can perform an Export to... operation to convert the drawing back to an earlier release. We often have clients that have earlier versions of CAD than we do. Our drawings are newer, but I export the drawings down to an earlier version so they can use them.

[Anonymous]

THANK YOU!

[RobDraw]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I KNOW THAT IN ORDER TO SAVE-AS/EXPORT CHANGE THE FILETYPE TO 20/20 I CHANGE IT DURING SAVE-AS. BUT I DID NOT DO THAT TO KEEP THE FILE AS 2013.

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This is wrong. You need to tell it if you want to save to an older format.

By default, AutoCAD, and many other programs, save the file to the newer format. In fact, you should have gotten a warning when you opened the file, that is unless you have suppressed that warning. It can be an annoying one if you deal with a lot of older format files. You need to tell it to save to an older format or export instead of saving depending on what kind of edits have been done and if any newer objects or features added to older objects. AutoCAD should warn you about this also.

[jamesmac1201]

Right on the money!