Find & Replace adds % Symbols

[Anonymous]

I'm using AutoCAD Electrical (but noticed this happens in LT as well). I have blocks with attributes that start with the % symbol. For example "%Var". I save the drawing as DXF and a script runs through everything and renames said variables to a component name (like MCB05). The idea is that anything with a % will be renamed according to project / customer standards. I'm running into an issue where if I use Find & Replace to rename my variables (for example, %Var is to be replaced with %Const), I only want to replace Var with Const. Once I do it, it looks fine. I see %Const. However, if I double click on the attribute it displays %%%Const. AutoCAD adds two extra % symbols! I understand why AutoCAD does this (because it thinks I want to use symbols). Now the easy solution you'd think would be to search for any instance of %%% and replace it with %, but it won't even find the %%% instance. Is there a work around for this? Much appreciated.

[john.vellek · Accepted solution]

HI @Anonymous,

I saw this older post and I was curious whether you had ever found a solution. Since I don't have your script it will be difficult for me to test.  If you are still having this issue, please attach a sample block(s) and your script so I can try to troubleshoot this for you.

One thought is to replace the % in the attribute name with a different character such as an underscore and see if the same problem exists.

Please hit the Accept as Solution button if my post fully solves your issue or answers your question.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Hi John,

Actually, the fix we settled on was to open the file in Notepad++ (we save in DXF format), search for all instances of "%%%" and replace it with "%".

It works for now.  I'm trying to get away from these templates lately anyways.