Upgrade LT?

[mandrews]

2005 will back save to 2000 based products. Ask your drawing supplier to always give you drawings in this format. Easy for them as a batch converter is included with 2005. Alternatively yes you could buy 1 copy & DIY.

Brenda is spot on though if you did a Return on Investment analysis you would perhaps see that the new features since 98 could make an increase in productivity which would give payback over a short period. Talk to me privately for a help with ROI - I will be out the office until 26/7 though.

Note - and here is one I've used previously to convince thrifty employers - Autodesk remove support & upgrade cost benifits periodically down the chain - every 4 years or so. Thus you can no longer upgrade your 98 or 2000i - need to buy a new product (more cost). It is always beneficial to stay within the upgrade loop - even if you miss one or two try to upgrade before your release is unsupported. If you can afford it & can prove the benefits - cheaper in the long run.
If in the US go subscription & that way you are always up with the game & have an annual cost you can budget for.

[crussell.61480]

Hey, Hey..... It works!!! I aquired a trial version of AutoCad2005, and installed it on my home machine. I used it to back rev the dwgs to 2000i, then burnt them to a CD, brought them to work, opened them in LT2000i, saved them to LT98, then opened them in LT98 without problems. - Sad thing is, now my employer will only want to get ONE copy of LT2005. - Oh well, as long as I can do my work. -
Thanks for all of your suggestions, craigr

[BrenBren]

Maybe you want to document how much time/effort you are spending doing this, figure out how much money it is costing the company to waste your time doing all this and convince them the money would be better spent upgrading your software. Look into doing a Return on Investment, like Mark says above. Presented properly, you might get lucky. You have to have solid figures, and facts to back them up. Look into some of the new features of 2005 that you might benefit from and include them in your ROI. Even something simple, like maybe smaller files means the drawings open faster, figure out how much time that will save = how much money (because time is money, you know). If you can save even 1500-2000 dollars, you can justify buying a few copies of 2005.

You never know

[snowm]

Don't know if you found your answer yet but one way I found to do the conversion is to open your 98 drawings in 2000i and save them to 2000i format. Then open the newly saved 2000i drawings in 2005 LT and then save them in that format. Cumbersome, but works. Don't know how many drawings you have to convert. Could get expensive in time spent converting drawings.