Moving entire drawing to new layer and purging existing layers

[spaulus]

I have some drawings that have objects and blocks on multiple layers, I want to put everything on the same layer and purge out old layers.

What is the best way to do this?

A friend is using a MAC version and when he select entire drawing and right clicks it gives him an option "combine with Layer...", is this what I need to do? how do you do that with windows version?

Thank you

[Anonymous]

Hi,

What you are asking depends alot upon the makeup of the drawing.  That is, if there are blocks or other items that are dependent upon other layer activity then you may have limited success in purging layers.

The first thing you should try is simply selecting everything you see in Model Space and using the layer list in the Home ribbon-Layer Panel.  With everything selected you can just choose the title of the layer you wish.  It's like a quick properties change for all of the objects that are selected.

Try a Purge and let it purge everything possible including nested objects.  This will let you know how much cannot be purged once done and you look at that layer list.

Of course there are other ramifications to purging everything but this attempt will let you know what you might be in store for.

As always, save a revised copy of the drawing when done so you don't mess up the original;)

If you need me to take a look at a drawing file to analyze any potential issues feel free to post it and ask and pointed questions about the purge.

Cheers,

Blaine

[beyoungjr]

BTW... If my reply helped you then please mark as solved but also mark this reply because I am fight issues with 2 profiles on these forums and I prefer the blyoung profile to get the marks.

Thanks,

Blaine

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> A friend is using a MAC version and when he select entire drawing and

>> right clicks it gives him an option "combine with Layer..."

You can do the same within the layer-manager, select multiple layers in the layer-manager, then right click and there you have the option "Merge selected layers to..."

BUT .. that is the worst way you can do for a dwg file as you kill structure information!

- alfred -

[spaulus]

I am just wanting to use the existing drawing as background reference. I am adding information on top of the existing P&ID and was trying to move all the existing data to a single layer and color white so that the new information stands out.

Steve

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> I am just wanting to use the existing drawing as background reference.

In that case I would attach this drawing as XRef and assign those layers a light grey or so.

But I never destroy exiting information (e.g. you are than not able to freeze specific layer/content any more).

- alfred -

[Kent1Cooper]

Some Searching will find routines to do that kind of thing. >Here< is one that goes a step further, which may be more than you need but should do what you want.

There is also the consideration that objects with color overrides won't lose them by just being put on a different Layer.  Search for things to get around that, too.

[ChicagoLooper · Accepted solution]

To move the objects from their respective layers to another, try this:

1-Invoke LAYMRG command.

1-Home tab=>AutoCAD Layers panel=>click dropdown arrow=>LAYMRG icon.
2-On cmd line, select 'N' then ENTER.

2-Select 'N' then ENTER.

3-In Merge Layers dialog, select the layers you wish to merge (shift+mouse to select multiple), then OK.

3-Highlight the layers to move (shift+mouse to select multiple layers).

4-On cmd line, accept the default and simply press ENTER.
5-Use mouse and click an existing object that resides on an existing layer (this is your target layer).
6-On cmd line, Enter Y.

Upon completion of the above, your selected layers and all the objects on them will move to the target layer and the old layers will be deleted. (If you wish to purge the layers after you delete them you'll still need to run PU command to purge the unwanted layers.)

[spaulus]

Thank you all for the information