I looked everywhere. Back in December I landed on an article in Autodesk describing four available methods of starting Autocad which provided support for relative paths. Now I just can't find it anymore or any related article on the subject.
I will paste a question I posted at that time on the google groups which did not receive much responses, I hope this forum can help me out.
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Relative Path for Xrefs & Images
An interesting one I can drop for all super users who are familiar with
setting up systems to manage "Relative Paths" efficiently.
18 months ago I joined a company that has adopted the method of
starting every single project with a shortcut to acad.exe and the path
to the project truncated in "Start In folder". It also starts a barrage
of scripts running in the background, but that will be another topic.
"e.g. x:\officeprojects\project5552444\dwgs\"
When starting autocad with the icon, it will define that path into the
"search folders" for reference files.
Thus, every xref attached into a drawing should be striped out of that
portion of the path. The rest of the file structure after the \dwgs\
(e.g.\dwgs\01_arch\; \dwgs\08_Inter\) should start the path for any
file attached (without the \dwg\ portion)
This method seems to work with any external consultant that will work
on the project and provide with data to be inserted back and forth into
all the drawings... This is as long as they use the same startup
system. (seems like).
I wonder, how many of you out there is using a similar setup, and on
your experience, which setup works efficiently.
I have not experimented yet with the "PROJECTNAME" variable as this
company has every variable stored on a read access only server.
Customization is not allowed. (Another topic altogheter)
I prefer to use the standard conventions created by autocad, (e.g.:
..\..\path) but need a load of input from outside as far as efficient
running setups before I submit a request to revise the current ongoing
standards.
Your input and comments are welcome.
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Thanks in advance