Cadig - AutoCAD MicroStation Software

Export or Print the layer information

admin — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 01:37:00 +0000

Many users of AutoCAD are looking for a way to export the layer information , i.e. name, color, description to Excel or Text. Then they can print those exported layer information. What’s the easiest way. You just need to open the Layer Manager dialog and select the layers you want to export ( or press Ctrl + A to select them all) and press Ctrl + C. Then you can open Excel or notepad and press Ctrl + V to paste the layer information.

Actually there is a very useful feature on Microsoft Windows. You can use Ctrl + C to copy the text in any message boxes. For example, you type something in notepad and close it.

You will receive the following message.

Currently if you press Ctrl + C, you will be able to copy the text on the message box and paste the text to Word or other text editors. It means you don’t need to type the messages manually to send those messages to the support of the applications while getting the error messages.

Link the Excel cell to AutoCAD Text

admin — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:41:07 +0000

There are two ways to import the data of Excel into AutoCAD. If you want to import a whole worksheet or the selected range into AutoCAD with the formats in Excel, you can try AutoTable. It can import a whole worksheet or the selected range from Excel to AutoCAD perfectly. If you want the cells of Excel only (without the formats), it’s a more flexible way to link the cells of Excel into AutoCAD as a field. Field can exist in any Text, MText or Attribute. Let’s see how to do it with AutoField.

1. Use the Insert menu or right click to choose Insert ->Field.

2. Select “AF Excel Cell” in the left panel of the Field dialog.

3. Open an Excel file and select the cell you want to import.

4. Click “Get Active Cell” to get the active cell address.

5. If you want to use the relative path, please choose “Relative Path”.

6. Click OK to insert a field.

Import PDF into AutoCAD free

admin — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 14:54:14 +0000

People love PDF after it was created by Adobe. Many AutoCAD engineers output their drawings as the PDF documents before the DWF is popular. So we often want to import the PDF documents into our drawings. Unfortunately there isn’t a convenience tool to complete this task. The following are the free methods I can find on Internet.

Method #1: Import PDF to AutoCAD as image

Download GSview and Ghostscript, install them.
Open the pdf document with GSview.
Go to the “File” menu, select “Convert…”.
Select an image format in the “Device” list.
Select a resolution you want. I recommend you select the highest resolution.
Click the “OK” button to save the PDF document to an image file.
Use the “imageattach” command of AutoCAD to insert the image file.

Method #2: Import PDF to AutoCAD as dwf underlay (this method is only for AutoCAD 2007 or later)

Download Autodesk DWF writer and install it.
Open the PDF file with the free Adobe Reader.
Go to the “File” menu, select “Print…”.
Select “Autodesk DWF Writer for 2D” and click the “OK” button.
Launch AutoCAD, and go to the “Insert” menu, Select “DWF underlay…”.

Method #3: Import PDF to AutoCAD as DXF

Download GSview and Ghostscript, install them.
Download pstoedit plugin for GSview and copy the plugins.dll to the same directory where you install the GSview (for example, C:\Program Files\Ghostgum\pstoedit\).
Go to the “Edit” menu, select “Convert to vector format…”.
Select “dxf: CAD exchange format” in the format list of the “PS to Edit” dialog, and click OK button to export the PDF file to a dxf file.
Launch AutoCAD, and insert the DXF file.

Method #4: AutoCAD 2009 – Bonus Pack 2 – PDF Attach

Autodesk releases two PDF enhancements in “Bonus Pack 2″. One of the PDF enhancements is “PDF Attach”. The command is PDFATTACH. And If you attach a vector PDF, you can use object snaps to snap to geometry in the PDF file.

But the enhancements is only available for AutoCAD 2009, AutoCAD Revit Architecture Suite 2009, and AutoCAD Revit Structure Suite 2009. You can log in to the subscription center of autodesk to download it.

Calculate the length of multiple AutoCAD objects

admin — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 14:48:37 +0000

AutoCAD Field is a great tool for AutoCAD 2005 or later. Fields are a really nice addition that give you quick access to various types of information via TEXT, MTEXT or an Attribute.

You can calculate the length of a single AutoCAD object (Line, Circle, Polyline etc.) with AutoCAD Object Field. But you can’t calculate the length of multiple AutoCAD objects. AutoField provides an additional field to do it.

1. Use the Insert menu or right click to choose Insert ->Field.

2. Select “AF Objects Length” in the left panel of the Field dialog.

3. Select the objects (supports LINE, POLYLINE, CIRCLE, ARC) to calculate.

4. Click OK to insert the field to the drawing.

Calculate the area of multiple AutoCAD Objects

admin — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 14:43:51 +0000

AutoCAD Field is a great tool for AutoCAD 2005 or later. Fields are a really nice addition that give you quick access to various types of information via TEXT, MTEXT or an Attribute.

You can calculate the area of a single AutoCAD object (Circle, Polyline etc.) with AutoCAD Object Field. But you can’t calculate the area of multiple AutoCAD objects. AutoField provide an additional field to do it.

1. Use the Insert menu or right click to choose Insert ->Field.

2. Select “AF Objects Area” in the left panel of the Field dialog.

3. Select the objects (supports POLYLINE, CIRCLE, ARC) to calculate.

4. Click OK to insert the field to the drawing.