sending a DWG without the blocks

[Anonymous]

Not sure if this is possible, here's what I'm trying to do:

A client wants me to send them the DWG files of the drawings for his project. Typically, I never send out DWGs because they contain a bunch of proprietary blocks that I took a long time to make, and I wouldn't want them to fall into the hands of my competitors. Is there any way to save a DWG without the block information? For instance, if I have a bunch of blocks that are made up of lines, polylines, attributes, etc., is there a way to sort of explode all of these blocks so that they just turn into lines and text objects, as opposed to editable blocks. Explode won't work because it turns the text items back into attributes and erases the text information in them.

I just need to send them a drawing that they can edit later on down the road, but without transmitting my proprietary block information.

Thanks in advance.

[Charles_Shade]

Google Cadlock for options.
Regards, Charles Shade

[Anonymous]

In LT it could be done EXCEPT for the blocks with attributes.
I would use qselect for all the other blocks, you may be out of luck on the ones with attributes though.

[Anonymous]

I've got LT 2010 ... I just found something about a BURST command that would do exactly what we're looking for, but it appears to be not included in LT. Argh.

[Anonymous]

Another option, find a friend with full and rename all your attributed blocks to name with a common prefix (like "explode_xxxx") and have him use burst, that way it can be done pretty quickly with qselect and the wildcard option.

[Anonymous]

Don't think I know anyone with the full version unfortunately...

The BURST command is apparently part of the "Express Tools" package for AutoCAD. Is there any way to purchase the Express Tools and add them on to LT 2010?

This seems like it should be a fairly simple task... It's unfortunate that a $1000 piece of software can't do it.

[Anonymous]

No, express tools utilize lisp and such which is not available in LT. As far as that task, yes it seems simple, but so are the myriad of other differences between LT and full.



If its something that is going to be an ongoing issue, consider purchasing full.

[Anonymous]

Cool, thanks for the help. I might just install a demo version of full to get it done for this instance.

I just spent about $5000 on 5 new LT 2010 licenses... another $25000 for 5 full version licenses doesn't seem practical, especially since we don't do any 3D stuff.

[Anonymous]

Well, there is the option of getting one seat of full and keeping the rest as LT. We do about a 5:1 ratio of LT to Full.

[Anonymous]

You can't add express tools since they use lisp and other features of
autocad that are what make it so much more expensive than LT. There is
something called ltexpress which has some of the missing features, but I
don't think burst is one of the features. It also is a version behind
at 2009. see www.ltexpress.com for more info. I am not trying to sell it
to you and have no vested interest in it, but you may find it useful. I
will say that more current versions of LT have had some of the features
that they offer already added by autodesk.

snottywong wrote:
> Don't think I know anyone with the full version unfortunately...
>
> The BURST command is apparently part of the "Express Tools" package for AutoCAD. Is there any way to purchase the Express Tools and add them on to LT 2010?
>
> This seems like it should be a fairly simple task... It's unfortunate that a $1000 piece of software can't do it.

[Anonymous]

Just be aware, under your North America License agreement, adding such tools
is a licensing violation and if you ever get a software audit it will be
added to any other issues discovered.

In other countries it is also there, but your jurisdiction may or may not
have treaties with the US that allow for audits and court-backed fines.

And if I may add an opinion: the noted add-on above is not as good as the
one from the land down-under 🙂

--
Dean Saadallah
http://LTisACAD.blogspot.com
--

[Anonymous]

I believe that it may be legal since it doesn't add functionality as
much as it automates already existing functions, but even so, it is very
expensive for what little it does. Years ago, under acadlt 2000i it was
useful as it added layer isolate and unisolate, which could be
accomplished in layer manager but with more effort. No lisp, vba, or
.net added, nor 3d or any of the other major functions.

Dean Saadallah wrote:
> Just be aware, under your North America License agreement, adding such tools
> is a licensing violation and if you ever get a software audit it will be
> added to any other issues discovered.
>
> In other countries it is also there, but your jurisdiction may or may not
> have treaties with the US that allow for audits and court-backed fines.
>
> And if I may add an opinion: the noted add-on above is not as good as the
> one from the land down-under 🙂
>

[Anonymous]

It taps into unavailable-to-LT ARX programming, as well as VBA, to achieve
it's target features. Reason it also works in full AutoCAD as well so they
are able to market to both groups.

--
Dean Saadallah
http://LTisACAD.blogspot.com
--

[Anonymous]

ok. but what do they offer in ltexpress that isn't already available in
full acad? most of what I saw on their site's description is stuff that
even LT already has, but was missing in older versions, such as the
previously mentioned layer commands. Of course autodesk would rather you
bought the current aclt than stretch out the usability of a 10 year old
version, but it still seems that almost everything that is on there is
currently on LT and certainly everything is in Acad full. To me it
looked more like a series of well written macros than real programming.
Of course it was a great deal when it was a freebie, but now that you
have to pay big bucks for it, that's a different ballgame.

Dean Saadallah wrote:
> It taps into unavailable-to-LT ARX programming, as well as VBA, to achieve
> it's target features. Reason it also works in full AutoCAD as well so they
> are able to market to both groups.
>

[Anonymous]

It was never a freebie: you are mixing it up with a freebie with a similar
name that truly used only core LT features, from a regular contributor back
in the day. These have been replaced for the most part with core abilities
since LT2007.

This other product has never been free.

--
Dean Saadallah
http://LTisACAD.blogspot.com
--

[Anonymous]

gotcha, thanks. I knew that something was out of whack there.

Dean Saadallah wrote:
> It was never a freebie: you are mixing it up with a freebie with a similar
> name that truly used only core LT features, from a regular contributor back
> in the day. These have been replaced for the most part with core abilities
> since LT2007.
>
> This other product has never been free.
>