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Thread: Update titleblock lisp AutoCad 2017

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    Default Update titleblock lisp AutoCad 2017

    Good Morning!
    I have been tasked with editing over 90 drawings and of course titleblock dates and approvals need to be updated. Is there a simple lisp routine I can run to change that info while in the drawing?

    Thanks
    C

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    Administrator BlackBox's Avatar
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    Default Re: Update titleblock lisp AutoCad 2017

    Welcome to AUGI.

    If your title blocks are attributed, consider using Lee's Update Titleblock Attributes routine.


    I personally use Excel to manage the data for each project, as I prefer to utilize Excel's cell references, formatting, etc. functionality. However, manually exporting Excel to CSV is a PITA. Which is why I came up with this Windows Shell Context menu to make the process as simple as editing in Excel, Save/Close, and right click:

    https://www.theswamp.org/index.php?t...7823#msg567823




    Cheers
    "How we think determines what we do, and what we do determines what we get."

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    All AUGI, all the time Liamnacuac's Avatar
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    Default Re: Update titleblock lisp AutoCad 2017

    This brings up a question and hopefully, a discussion. We currently have a lot of routines and have been running lisp on attributed blocks for about seven(?) years now. Longer than I've worked here at least.. We have gone through several different iterations of the routine and now it is starting to break down a bit, and the number of people who are able to keep the routines working are becoming fewer and fewer. I have a hard time looking at these lisps and following along anymore, and honestly, I don't have time. That doesn't mean we don't have title blocks, though. So, do we use Sheet Sets? I haven't used them for six years, but when I did, I had hit and miss luck with them. We have VERY big projects, and I am a bit nervous about trusting title block fields to be properly filled across a network.. So, If I have files that I don't expect to be sending to outside clients, and keeping on one network, but I may have to plot over 1500 files to .pdf at a time, am I better to use use Sheet Set manager, or Batch Script processing?

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    Past Vice President / AUGI Volunteer peter's Avatar
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    Default Re: Update titleblock lisp AutoCad 2017

    There are many LISP masters who have services to maintain old lisp routines...

    LISP is incredibly stable and long lasting (compared to microsoftisms which need CONSTANT updating and revisions for every operating system and every three AutoCAD versions)

    To process 1500 documents, I would suggest that you contract with a expert in .NET or C++ to develop and maintain a tool for that.

    But expect to pay for that kind of service.

    Those of us who code know how valuable LISP has been to production, often speeding up drawing time by 10x.

    Managers frequently would rather pay for more monkeys than pay a developer to automate their detailing, just out of ignorance.

    They would rather pay 10x$50k = $500k (or half a million bucks a year) rather than pay a developer $100k (once) and maybe $20k a year in maintenance for the same production rates.

    ALso the automated production is of superior quality...

    If you want to know the best developers in the various API's ping me offline.

    P=
    AutomateCAD

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    Default Re: Update titleblock lisp AutoCad 2017

    Quote Originally Posted by Liamnacuac View Post
    This brings up a question and hopefully, a discussion. We currently have a lot of routines and have been running lisp on attributed blocks for about seven(?) years now. Longer than I've worked here at least.. We have gone through several different iterations of the routine and now it is starting to break down a bit, and the number of people who are able to keep the routines working are becoming fewer and fewer. I have a hard time looking at these lisps and following along anymore, and honestly, I don't have time. That doesn't mean we don't have title blocks, though. So, do we use Sheet Sets? I haven't used them for six years, but when I did, I had hit and miss luck with them. We have VERY big projects, and I am a bit nervous about trusting title block fields to be properly filled across a network.. So, If I have files that I don't expect to be sending to outside clients, and keeping on one network, but I may have to plot over 1500 files to .pdf at a time, am I better to use use Sheet Set manager, or Batch Script processing?
    I'd recommend switching to Sheet Set Manager. For it to work smoothly your drawings and templates have to be set up to reference Sheet Set Fields and set up to plot layout. From the Plot drop-down in Sheet Set Manager you have many options including Publish to DWF, DWFx, PDF, or Plotter all without opening the drawings. It does require understanding by those creating the drawings though.

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    Default Re: Update titleblock lisp AutoCad 2017

    1+ for using Sheet Set Manager to populate the title block content; both for project level attributes (applies to all sheets in a plan set), as well as sheet-specific attributes.

    That will require you (or someone) to plan out the necessary custom Sheet and Sheet Set Properties to be added to your .DST file. To make it logical to initially populate at the start of a project, and to maintain thereafter, you'll also need to plan out the naming convention of those properties, so that your custom Sheet and Sheet Set Properties might be grouped together to make it easier on the user to identify and edit what they need to.


    Separately, if you're plotting 1500 sheets, you're certainly not doing that at one time Haha, but you will need to work out a method better than Publish (even from Sheet Set Manager).

    My personal preference is to use the Autopublish mechanism to plot a sheet drawing to PDF at drawing SAVE*. This method takes exponentially less time to produce that PDF than any other plotting method, and uses the named Page Setup assigned. It also requires that the drawing be open in the Editor, which you'd have to have done to get the sheet drawing ready for printing anyway.

    That said, the prospect of opening each of the 1500 drawings now (after the fact) is not so appealing.

    There are other ways to publish those, and more quickly than one-at-a-time using Publish (even from Sheet Set Manager), such as employing Core Console to batch process the plotting operation in parallel (multiple instances at once). This takes a whole lot less time, and I've previously set it up to work from Windows Shell (right click) menu for my own work before, but it's not without some trade offs. First of which is processing in parallel (in lieu of series) is going eat up your system resources until complete, so knowing how many you can process at once (after you setup a working Script, etc.) is something you'll have to evaluate based on your workstations. Second, is the fact that it (Core Console) executes the plot operation from an AutoCAD profile, despite my working in Civil 3D (not sure what you use?), which meant that I had to go configure that vanilla Profile to work with my plot styles, etc. before the resultant batch-processed PDFs were 'right'.

    2017-06-15_9-20-56.png


    Once in place, this method of batch processing saved me substantial time in getting the PDF output I needed, but I only ever need this option when working on (or inheriting) a project that doesn't already have a PDF of each sheet drawing. For that, you can easily take the latest PDF set someone else produced via Publish, etc., export them to single sheet PDF and renamed accordingly to match the Autopublish output. At that point, you just SAVE* your sheet drawings when you make changes, and you always have a 'current set' ready to go when the boss asks for a PDF to email to someone, or plot a set, etc.

    I keep these PDFs with my sheet drawings, and when I've reached a project milestone, I combine them and save to another folder (as well as archive the CAD, so I can reproduce whole plan set if needed); this gives me the 'current set' and a history of the plans throughout a project.


    Anyway, we all work differently, so try and figure out what works best for your setup, both in the short term (now), and long term.



    Cheers
    "How we think determines what we do, and what we do determines what we get."

    Sincpac C3D ~ Autodesk Exchange Apps

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    Administrator rkmcswain's Avatar
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    Default Re: Update titleblock lisp AutoCad 2017

    Ditto what Tom said.

    SSM may not help you today with this immediate problem, but start using it later today for your future projects!
    R.K. McSwain | CAD Panacea |

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    Default Re: Update titleblock lisp AutoCad 2017

    Because we have a tile block that we have used for over 10 years, we have a number of lisps that do certain things and are easy changed to suit a particular task updating certain attributes. They could be incorporated into a script so processing over multiple dwgs. Our pdf lisps are hard coded for our title block, again they could be modified to suit the task and scripting over multiple dwgs.

    The obvious one is we have a plot all layouts in a dwg the other is plot a range, whilst we just do one dwg at a time it could again be scripted for multiple dwgs. open dwg1 (load "MYPDF") 2 7, layouts 2 -7 plotted.

    One of the things overlooked is you can update attributes via their creation order so you do not need to know any tag names. Just double click an attributed block. All you need to know is block name, even then a title block can be found as its normally at a known location, we always have ours at 0,0.

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    Default Re: Update titleblock lisp AutoCad 2017

    This is really easy to do.

    With multiple ways to do it.

    Can you post a stripped title block so we can see its structure and attribute tagstrings.

    How do you want to enter the information and select drawings to be processed?

    Like you could process an entire directory.

    You could process all open drawings.

    etc...
    AutomateCAD

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