xrefs - 2002 / 2004

[drafting.82475]

Ladies and Gentlemen ,

We use both full release and LT versions of AutoCAD in our office of 50 project managers and engineering & design staff. Recently we upgraded our engineering & design staff seats to AutoCAD 2004 & 2005LT, but kept our project managers and some of the engineering staff seats at our current LT versions of 2000i & 2002.

The problem we are encountering is strange and random. Our newly installed AutoCAD 2004 seats are all set in the options dialog box to save automatically back to 2000/2000 LT so they do not have to think about selecting this downward compatibility for the remaining LT 2000i users. But when the project managers and engineering staff still using LT 2000i open some recently work on DWG files saved from the 2004 seats, they are missing some of or all of the XREF's associated with the drawing file.
As I said this is strange and in addition it is random, as the same drawings will appear perfectly fine when opened in LT 2000i/2002 and other drawings will be missing it's XREF's. Even with all the files saved as 2000/2000lt.
In addition some projects that have nested xref's, are showing the nested files as "not found". What is interesting is that the program finds the file with the nested xrefs, but not the nested files, even when they are all inside the same folder.
This is driving me crazy, I receive phone calls all day long from project managers trying to view files with missing xrefs.
I really appreciate any help.

Jaime Silva
Gouvis Consulting
Director of Cad Operations

[Rick.B]

When drafting in the R2004 release, do you use refedit on the xrefs? I think this can cause drawings saved in earlier formats to be converted to R2004.

Also you should verify the reference paths saved in the drawing file are correct. There are a couple of ways to check this. I would suggest you use the Xref Manager in the drawing editor. Open the manager stretch the window out to see all of the columns, make the Saved Path column wide enough to see the entire path of the xref and check that it is correct. If you need to fix one select it, click the BROWSE... button, find the correct file and click the SAVE PATH button. Paths for nested xrefs should be fixed in the drawing they are inserted in. The second option I would discourage, using the Reference Manager. This could be used to checked the paths but any updates would convert the drawings to the most current version of AutoCAD installed on your workstation.

I hope I completely under stood your post and I hope this helps.

[mikepartenheimer]

Jaime,
First: In my opinion, using SaveAs to an older version as part of your work process is a bad decision. I have found, first hand, that this GREATLY increases drawing file corruption as files are constantly translated back and forth. Something to consider: We utilize a network license at our firm. I have 105 installations using 82 licenses company wide (maximum number of concurrent users is 82). Our managers have the same full version of the software loaded on their workstations as the design staff. Because they are occasional users, our only cost is a few extra licenses to accommodate all of them.

Second: 2004/2005 introduced Partial Pathways to xrefs (Images in 2005). Have your users been using partial pathways rather than full pathways?

Third: If your users are using REFEDIT as Rick mentions, and saving the changes back they will be saved in the 2004 format. Use the Batch Drawing Converter tool available for download from Autodesk's website. http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=4091668&linkID=2475161 The tool will indicate the file version of an entire list of drawings without even opening them. If conversion to a different version is needed, this can be done to all listed drawings with one click.

Good Luck to you,
Mike Partenheimer
CAD Manager
Hall & Foreman, Inc

[drafting.82475]

Thank you very much, Rick and Mike for your posts.

I downloaded the Batch Drawing Converter and after running it, I was still having the same problem. But looking close at the xref paths, per your suggestion, I found that all the nested files had a relative path, and I believe that was the problem. I've been using relative path since I started using 2004, without any problems, but I guess in this case (nested files) they don't work. Now I have to change all files that the architect sent us to full path and see what happens on the early versions.
As far as refedit, we usually don't use since we are all aware that saves back to the current version.
We are thinking about moving into the direction of the network license because we want to export some data from engineering programs on plans we draft, and this is only possible using lisp routines, not available on LT versions.
Again thanks for your help.

Jaime

[Rick.B]

You know this thread inspires a wish.

Refedit and Reference Manager (http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=16164&page=1&pp=10)

I know it doesn't help at this time but it could make life a little easier in the future. If you like it vote for it.

Thanks

[rubena.77819]

When drafting in the R2004 release, do you use refedit on the xrefs? I think this can cause drawings saved in earlier formats to be converted to R2004.

Also you should verify the reference paths saved in the drawing file are correct. There are a couple of ways to check this. I would suggest you use the Xref Manager in the drawing editor. Open the manager stretch the window out to see all of the columns, make the Saved Path column wide enough to see the entire path of the xref and check that it is correct. If you need to fix one select it, click the BROWSE... button, find the correct file and click the SAVE PATH button. Paths for nested xrefs should be fixed in the drawing they are inserted in. The second option I would discourage, using the Reference Manager. This could be used to checked the paths but any updates would convert the drawings to the most current version of AutoCAD installed on your workstation.

I hope I completely under stood your post and I hope this helps.
I am having the same anoying problem and we have spent alot of time opening and resaving drawings. We did not catch the problem right away, not until user that are on the 2002 platform started getting undefined xrefs in the drawings. Save as (options) should be a Global setting!!