I must be missing something.....

[jande43]

I didn't mean to clump everyone in the 50's age range into the "not willing to learn" category and I guess I should have elaborated a bit on that before throwing that out there. All I meant by it was that here at this mill most of the Engineers and Techs are all in their 50's and on their way to a happy retirement. They (meaning the people here) look at change as a thorn in their side, they would rather keep things the way they are until they silently slide out the door. Unfortunatly a change like that would only end in the redline sitting on someones desk and then hitting the trash when they cleaned out their office. I am knee deep in that exact situation with one of our departments. Write access to our drawings was locked and instead of walking the redlines over to the Engineering department or emailing them over the mentality went to, if they couldn't change the drawings themselves then they must not be important so we aren't going to bother. Its been almost a year since I was hired for this job and we now have people making redlines again so we are working in the right direction.
That being said.... I am just going to throw this out there. Could I find someone to write a routine that I could start in a file before I left for the night to go through open a drawing, add a sheet set/title block/page setup? I remember when I was working in CAD about 8 years ago we had a guy that could write a routine for just about anything. He wrote a routine that you could start on a file that had 100+ drawings in it. It would open a drawing, zoom extents and print and on to the next.
Thanks everyone for the input! This forum has been a huge help in getting me through this first year!!

[Wanderer]

Could I find someone to write a routine that I could start in a file before I left for the night to go through open a drawing, add a sheet set/title block/page setup? I remember when I was working in CAD about 8 years ago we had a guy that could write a routine for just about anything. He wrote a routine that you could start on a file that had 100+ drawings in it. It would open a drawing, zoom extents and print and on to the next.
Thanks everyone for the input! This forum has been a huge help in getting me through this first year!!

http://forums.augi.com/showthread.ph...ngs-in-a-Hurry

This is the first 'programming' class I ever took, it's a good basis to understand the process, if you'd like to look into it yourself, and, of course, if you've got any questions, you can always try the programming forums.

[Tom Beauford]

Unfortunatly a change like that would only end in the redline sitting on someones desk and then hitting the trash when they cleaned out their office.

Use Autodesk Design Review instead of paper redlines.

I am knee deep in that exact situation with one of our departments. Write access to our drawings was locked and instead of walking the redlines over to the Engineering department or emailing them over the mentality went to, if they couldn't change the drawings themselves then they must not be important so we aren't going to bother. Its been almost a year since I was hired for this job and we now have people making redlines again so we are working in the right direction.
That being said.... I am just going to throw this out there. Could I find someone to write a routine that I could start in a file before I left for the night to go through open a drawing, add a sheet set/title block/page setup? I remember when I was working in CAD about 8 years ago we had a guy that could write a routine for just about anything. He wrote a routine that you could start on a file that had 100+ drawings in it. It would open a drawing, zoom extents and print and on to the next.
Thanks everyone for the input! This forum has been a huge help in getting me through this first year!!

How would the lisp know what areas to put in the viewports to print?

Sorry for ranting, but I started with r12, but since plotting from paper space has been around since r11 I've always plotted from paper space. Hard to sympathize with folk who haven't picked up even the basic parts of AutoCAD that have been around for 20 years. Have they tried mtext or polylines yet? Establish some standards and hold them to it. Being close to retirement should motivate them to do well enough to make it there, not be an excuse to take it easy.

[jaberwok]

I didn't mean to clump everyone in the 50's age range into the "not willing to learn" category and I guess I should have elaborated a bit on that before throwing that out there. All I meant by it was that here at this mill most of the Engineers and Techs are all in their 50's and on their way to a happy retirement. They (meaning the people here) look at change as a thorn in their side, they would rather keep things the way they are until they silently slide out the door. Unfortunatly a change like that would only end in the redline sitting on someones desk and then hitting the trash when they cleaned out their office. I am knee deep in that exact situation with one of our departments. Write access to our drawings was locked and instead of walking the redlines over to the Engineering department or emailing them over the mentality went to, if they couldn't change the drawings themselves then they must not be important so we aren't going to bother. Its been almost a year since I was hired for this job and we now have people making redlines again so we are working in the right direction.
That being said.... I am just going to throw this out there. Could I find someone to write a routine that I could start in a file before I left for the night to go through open a drawing, add a sheet set/title block/page setup? I remember when I was working in CAD about 8 years ago we had a guy that could write a routine for just about anything. He wrote a routine that you could start on a file that had 100+ drawings in it. It would open a drawing, zoom extents and print and on to the next.
Thanks everyone for the input! This forum has been a huge help in getting me through this first year!!

Since you're plotting from modelspace, I assume you mean a folder of files and not a file of layouts.

An old way of adding/changing content is to create a template file that contains what you want and nothing else. In this case, you want a layout tab with a single viewport on a non-plotting layer and a page setup to match the printer. You start a new drawing using this template and insert an existing file into modelspace. Save the file with the same name as the existing file but in a different folder. Switch to the layout tab. Now the part that might be difficult to automate - is plotted scale important?
<< depends >>
Finally, plot, save, undo/all and start over with the next file.

Anyway, as others have said, there is rarely any need to mass convert old drawings - just do them as and when they are needed.

[rkmcswain]

..... Hard to sympathize with folk who haven't picked up even the basic parts of AutoCAD that have been around for 20 years. Have they tried mtext or polylines yet?

I know of few users who would be content with R12 on DOS. That is about the extend of the feature set they use anyway.

Ever get this when you go to stretch a leader?

brokenleader.png

[jande43]

Sorry it's been a spell. Busy busy. I guess I have to start somewhere so I believe I will just make a template and start inserting it one by one. Maybe I can get an AutoCad student one summer and that can be their job. Thanks for all the input!!
@Wanderer thanks for the link on the lsp class. I will be looking into that for sure!
@rkmcswain- lol Everyday!!