File conversions

Newer versions of the software can open older versions of the files but what do you do if you have an older version of AutoCAD?

You can always go back to the person that sent you the file and ask them to save it to an earlier version for you (although an easier method is to use DWG Trueview!). In AutoCAD if you go to  Save As in the Files of type drop down you can select the DWG version.

To set the default file version, open up the AutoCAD options and under the Open and Save tab you can set the DWG version that you want to save all files in.

DWG Trueview

DWG Trueview allows you to batch convert DWG files to a different version its also available from Autodesk for free! You can download it here http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/index?id=6703438&siteID=123112

Open DWG Trueview and select DWG Convert.

You can then select the files that you want to convert and the DWG version that you want to convert to.

DWG Trueview allows you to add your own conversion setups as well so you could save down as low as AutoCAD LT97. There is also an option to Purge and Audit each drawing!

The left hand pane shows the layers you want to convert from. You can use the Load button to load layers in from a dwg, dws or dwt file or you can click the New button to and add a layer name from your company standards. In this example I have Five layers named Layer1 – Layer5 that I am going to translate to Uniclass layers. I added five Uniclass layers in under the Translate To panel and created mappings by selecting the layer on the left then the layer in the list on the right and clicking the map button. The dialog should then look like this.

Note that you can also pick the Linetype, Colour and Linewight. Once you are happy with the translation hit the Translate button and all of your Layers will be remapped!

Colour dependent plot style tables (CTB) are more commonly used over named plot style tables (STB). CTB uses an objects colour to determine characteristics such as line weight. I am going to create a CTB file that will control the display of plotted elements within a file. Start by creating layers within a new dwg and assigning different colours to them. There are 256 plot styles in a CTB file, one for each colour available in AutoCAD.

Draw lines in the dwg each on its own layer.

We now need to create our CTB file so that we can print the lines out with different thicknesses and colours. There are a few ways of doing this, i used the stylesmanager command to open the Plot Styles folder (the location where all of the default AutoCAD plot styles are saved) when the dialog opens there is a shortcut that allows you to add a new plot style. Click on the Add-A-Plot Style Table Wizard.

On the Add Plot Style Table dialog click Next

Make sure Start from Scratch is selected and click Next.

In this example we are going to configure a CTB file so make sure Colour-Dependent Plot Style Table is selected.

Enter a file name for the plot style and click Next.

On the next screen is where we get to configure the table so that our colours print out different thicknesses etc. Click on the Plot Style Table Editor button and then select Table View (I find this view easiest to see the properties on the CTB file). Here in the table view you can see the properties that you can define within the CTB file. In this example we are going to change the Colour of all of our lines to Black and gradually increase the thickness of each colour under the line weight column in 0.0500 mm increments. You can right click on a column and select Apply to All Styles to apply your settings to every column.

Once you have finished click Save & Close and then Finish. We have now created a CTB file that we can apply to our drawing when printing. To see the results of the CTB file go to File > Print. In the Plot – Model dialog make sure Plot with plot styles is checked and under the plot style table (pen assignments) select the CTB file you created earlier.

You can see from the preview that the line colours are now all Black an that they gradually increase in thickness.