Keyword Search within Autocad Files?

[Youngst]

All,
Does anyone know of a way to perform a keyword search within Autocad Files? Microsoft search will find a particular Keyword within Word Documents, but when you try to search for a Keyword within *.dwg files, it can't seem to find anything. Would it happen because Autocad File Structure is different from a Word document? For that matter, maybe Autocad 2000 is structured differently from Autocad 2005? My situation is such that we are trying to find a specific project file that may have it's filename mis-labeled. We have a hard copy, but are looking for an electronic version. If there isn't a way to search Autocad Files for specific keywords, then we'll just have to recreate it.

Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

Youngster

[Mike.Perry]

Hi

Check out the following thread -

Searching Drawing Keywords (http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=7389)

Have a good one, Mike

[BrenBren]

Dotsoft has a utility that does this, but it costs $50.00. Here is the link (http://www.dotsoft.com/dwgsearch.htm)

I am pretty sure that AutoCAD does not have this functionality, with the exception of the keywords in the links that Mike put up here. However, if you don't have keywords in your files, that won't do you any good at all.

[Youngst]

Thanks to all. At least I know that someone out there has also had the same problem. I'll check out the link to the DotSoft product.

Thanks for everyone's help.

Youngster.

[jaberwok]

Bear(?) in mind that A2005 dwg files are compressed and, some claim, encrypted.
If you only want to find some text in an open dwg file, there are shareware/freeware Findtext- type lisp routines that will zoom into the area of a given string (but only one occurrence of that string, in my experience).

John B

[Mike.Perry]

If you only want to find some text in an open dwg file, there are shareware/freeware Findtext- type lisp routines that will zoom into the area of a given string (but only one occurrence of that string, in my experience).Hi

You should find that the regular AutoCAD command ._FIND can do this (has been available since AutoCAD 2000)...

ID: TS19335 - Finding and replacing text in a drawing (http://usa.autodesk.com/getdoc/id=TS19335)

Granted the ._FIND command could do with some improvements but it will Zoom to a text string within an open drawing file.

Have a good one, Mike