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Thread: How do anonymous blocks get created & why?

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    Default How do anonymous blocks get created & why?

    Sometimes i find blocks from other users in my company which i think are AutoCAD named blocks such as A$C3A7225EA. I have always been told that this is a bad thing but i am unsure why they get created & how. Sometimes we copy clip & paste things from drawing to drawing so i have a feeling this is how they get created. Am i right about this? Is this really a bad thing to have these blocks & if so, how can i keep this from happening?

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    Default Re: How do anonymous blocks get created & why?

    Copy and paste does that. just purge out if the definition is no longer used. The problem is when the block definitions accumulate and never get purged out, bloating the drawing needlessly.

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    Default Re: How do anonymous blocks get created & why?

    yeah, i would really like to figure out a way to keep people from creating these blocks. Some of them may be the same as say a block that is properly named but somehow they get inserted or copied into a project. I'm not exporting these block names to an external file like some people do but i would like to keep our standard stuff as clean as possible

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    Default Re: How do anonymous blocks get created & why?

    Quote Originally Posted by sovby254640 View Post
    yeah, i would really like to figure out a way to keep people from creating these blocks...
    rap on their fingers with a ruler if they use copy-n-paste? otherwise just get people educated on purging from time to time.

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    Default Re: How do anonymous blocks get created & why?

    This is Autodesk's official explanation of Anonymous Blocks.

    Issue
    AutoCAD uses anonymous blocks for supporting hatch patterns and dimensions. These types of blocks are also created using AutoLISP or similar means, but cannot be intentionally created in the drawing editor. Also, anonymous blocks cannot be modified using AutoCAD editing commands.
    Solution
    Anonymous blocks can pose problems when extracting block information for compiling data, such as in a spreadsheet. For example, if you needed to know how many blocks of a particular item were inserted in a drawing, the number of blocks may be incorrect if the block became an anonymous block at one time as a result of using an AutoLISP routine.

    Although you cannot prevent anonymous blocks from being created, it is important to know that they exist.
    Personally, the thing I've always found most annoying about them is that some of them can be modified with some autocad commands and some cannot.
    Like, some might show up in the RENAME dialog box or the QSELECT dialog or Design Center and others don't. I don't think any of them will work with BEDIT.

    You can try this app: BLKRENANON.VLX to rename the anonymous blocks to something autocad will recognize, and will therefore be editable by all commands.

    I believe I've read one way to create them is for someone using a newer version saving down, and the dynamic blocks and annotation will show up as anonymous blocks to the older version user.

    Edit: Oh, and, don't forget about scrolling down below this post for the Similar Threads section, linking to other posts on this topic.
    Last edited by Wanderer; 2013-05-02 at 01:21 PM. Reason: reminder of similar threads
    Melanie Stone
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    Default Re: How do anonymous blocks get created & why?

    @OP
    Those are not anonymous block. They are normal block. It is just how AutoCAD handles the naming of block from objects pasted from clipboard (_PASTEBLOCK) so it wont ask you for a name every time you do it. What I do about this is I rename it right away after pasting.

    Anonymous block starts from "*" and they don't show in the block list. This is the anonymous block that the Autodesk's explanation from Wanderer's post is talking about.

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    Default Re: How do anonymous blocks get created & why?

    Quote Originally Posted by arshiel88 View Post
    @OP
    Those are not anonymous block. They are normal block. It is just how AutoCAD handles the naming of block from objects pasted from clipboard (_PASTEBLOCK) so it wont ask you for a name every time you do it. What I do about this is I rename it right away after pasting.

    Anonymous block starts from "*" and they don't show in the block list. This is the anonymous block that the Autodesk's explanation from Wanderer's post is talking about.
    D'oh! You're right, I didn't read closely enough before I replied to notice what the OP was referencing. Thank you for pointing that difference out.
    Melanie Stone
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    Default Re: How do anonymous blocks get created & why?

    Quote Originally Posted by arshiel88 View Post
    @OP
    Those are not anonymous block. They are normal block. It is just how AutoCAD handles the naming of block from objects pasted from clipboard (_PASTEBLOCK) so it wont ask you for a name every time you do it. What I do about this is I rename it right away after pasting.

    Anonymous block starts from "*" and they don't show in the block list. This is the anonymous block that the Autodesk's explanation from Wanderer's post is talking about.
    Now this is making sense to me. Thank you guys very much. I think what is happening in my case is people are pasting these in their drawing using the past as block option instead of just using the paste option. Since it is already a block there is no need to use the paste block option. Now if i can just get everyone to use the paste option everything will be good. Probably not gonna happen but at least i know why this is happening now which was the reason for my post in the first place. Thank you very much everyone

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