Always start with a Civil 3D template (dwt).

[civil3Dguide]

Always start with a Civil 3D template (dwt). Do not use the standard acad.dwt that is set as the default for QNew when shipped.Unless of course you save a Civil 3D.dwt or dwg as acad.dwt.

[bcallagan]

Good Idea - but sometimes I get files from surveyors or other engrs that don't have my styles.....is there as EASY way to transfer ALL styles from one drawing to another?
Maybe I just don't understand it, but using design center doesn't seem to enable transfer of all styles...you have to expand the tree, choose them one at a time, etc.

[civil3Dguide]

You're going to really like this one, as I did when I found it out, but it is one of those "why did I not find this out before now" tips. You can take a blank dwg with your styles in it, insert it as a block and that will bring them in. I have had some trouble with the larger files, but the Autodesk _NCS dwt or something around the same size 500Kb works good for me. If I try one around 1Mg I'm crashing most likely.
Enjoy

[rindri]

Thats brillant, Thanks!

[Hammer.John.J]

Wow, i remember when you had to do this with regular cad dwgs that we setup as templates before the .dwt existed.... funny how that still works. That however is somewhat of a boondoggle though, because on one hand it's great that it brings everything in... but it's bad that it brings everything in. If you have some blown up stuff in a drawing and you insert it into your nice drawing, you're in a world of hurt and cleanup on aisle 9 takes days.

[Glenn Pope]

I started using the CAD standard tools that are built into AutoCAD. I just copy and past the drawing from the surveyor and use the tools to step through the layers, textstyles, etc. Can have a cleaned up ready to go base file within a hour. As long as the surveyor doesn't put half of the line work on layer "MISC"