Can't Purge a Huge File

[Jim.Solon]

Hey, folks:
Running AutoCAD Architecture 2013. I received an AutoCAD file from a consultant which had been done up quite extensively with AEC modeling tools. It's 20 MB in size and awkward to manipulate. I've gone so far as to delete and purge all objects from the file and still end up with 5 MB of something. There are a lot of anonymous blocks and odd linetypes which I don't find any reference to but cannot purge.

Looking at those linetypes, there are references to what I presume are xrefs which have come and gone under previous users. At this time there are no xrefs in the file. My guess is that over the years the file has built up a lot of clutter and that is what is slowing down the drawing. Any recommendations for how to lighten the load?

Thanks,

Jim Solon
NORR Illinois

[Brian Myers]

If you don't have any drawing in the layout (paperspace) environment that you care about, you can use an old trick. WBLOCK the elements you want to keep into a new file. Then use that file. It will leave behind all the left over information in the old file. Copy to Clipboard and paste into a new file does the same thing, but doing the WBLOCK method keeps things easy in terms of maintaining your coordinates, etc.

[dkoch]

...Running AutoCAD Architecture 2013. I received an AutoCAD file from a consultant which had been done up quite extensively with AEC modeling tools. It's 20 MB in size and awkward to manipulate. I've gone so far as to delete and purge all objects from the file and still end up with 5 MB of something. There are a lot of anonymous blocks and odd linetypes which I don't find any reference to but cannot purge....

When you deleted all of the objects, did you then go into the Style Manager and purge all unused Styles and Definitions? There could be quite a large number of those in a 20 MB ACA drawing file. Unpurgeable linetypes could be referenced in a Display Representation (at the drawing default, style-override or object-override levels, although the latter would not apply when you deleted all of the objects).

[Jim.Solon]

Wblock is an old friend but doesn't clear the chaff on this file. I have tried WBLOCK-ing simple line work out of the drawing, but the new block still brings all the clutter from the old drawing.

[Jim.Solon]

Style Manager has nothing in it under Arch Objects. Doc Objects only has the Standard AEC Dimension Style, and Multi-Purpose Objects only has the AIA Layer Key. All other headings are blank. Display Manager indicates there are no Configurations, sets, or Reps which have items to be purged or deleted.

A lot of the linetypes appear to be from a Civil drawing. Are there applications loaded within ACA which could bring this stuff with them?

[Jim.Solon]

Problem solved, I think.

I was reminded in another thread of the utility SuperPurge which, when installed, cleared away all the unwanted linetypes, text styles, anonymous blocks, etc. That hardly made a dent in the file size, though. After some judicious "Hard" purges I came across the installed dictionaries for curtain wall styles and window assemblies. It turned out that they were hiding some 50,000 items, and after those two dictionaries were hard purged the file size fell to about 300k.

Thanks to those who responded, as well as those who responded to a thread from 2011.