acad.lin location

[thomas.stright]

I understand how to edit the acad.lin file, How many places does 06 look for this? Do I need to replace all acad.lin files? or just one?

[Opie]

It would most likely be the first one found from the order of your support folders. You can find that order from the Options dialog box on the File tab under Support File Search Path.

[.T.]

Hi Thomas,

If I remember right, by default, acad.lin is in each users support directory in each version,
(<drive>:\Documents and settings\%username%\Application Data\Autodesk\<version>\
<revision>\enu\Support), so it depends on how many versions and how many users.

I believe it was moved out of the Program Files directory completely.

[rkmcswain]

You can use this to find the currently referenced "acad.lin" file.

(startapp "notepad" (findfile "acad.lin"))

[sinc]

You can use this to find the currently referenced "acad.lin" file.

(startapp "notepad" (findfile "acad.lin"))

Now that's the sort of trick that would put Lisp-lovers into a swoon...

[.T.]

Thanks for the tip RK

[rkmcswain]

I actually use a little more robust version of this that prompts me for a file name - then opens it in my fav ASCII editor -- useful for .pgp, acad.lsp, acaddoc.lsp, acad.lin, acad.pat, etc.

No need to know where it's at....

[sinc]

You can use this to find the currently referenced "acad.lin" file.

(startapp "notepad" (findfile "acad.lin"))

Another option:

From the "Select Linetype" dialog, hit the "Load..." button. It will start out pointing at your currently-loaded file, and you can just look and see where it's at.

[thomas.stright]

Thanks for the replies and ideas.

[rkmcswain]

My earlier post was bit misleading, as is the follow up post suggesting that there is a "currently-loaded file".

Linetype definitions are stored in the drawing file, so there is no "currently-loaded file", or "currently referenced 'acad.lin' file" as I badly put it.

You could have 10 different "acad.lin" files, or none of them. You could have a "thomas.lin" instead. Upon opening of a drawing, it won't make any difference. There is certainly no guarantee that the "hidden" linetype in a drawing you have is the same as the definition of "hidden" in any given .LIN file.

The method of finding the file that "richards.64879" wrote about is identical to the (findfile...) lisp trick. They both search the support file search path for the first "acad.lin" file.

The original request was about finding the "acad.lin" file as if there is only one that AutoCAD will read. This is sort of misleading too. True, AutoCAD will point you to a "acad.lin" file as "richards.64879" said while in the LINETYPE command, but you are free to load linetype definitions from any .LIN file.

If you are planning to modify "acad.lin" or create your own "thomas.lin" for example, then you should start your own customization directory if you have not already. For example, create a "C:\Thomas" directory. Put this path at the TOP of your support file search path, and then save your modified copy of "acad.lin" in C:Thomas. Put anything else in this directory that you have created for yourself (acaddoc.lsp, acad.lsp, <yourcustommenu>.cui, etc.) Then when you upgrade, all you have to do is add "C:Thomas" to the top of the support file search path.

This will eliminate confusion regarding multiple .LIN files, or which one is the default, or which one should you edit, or even keep you from mistakenly deleting your "good" version... since all your customized files will live in a non-Autodesk supplied directory.