Our firm has a big project here in Philly, and the owner recommended an MEP consultant for us to use. There is a language barrier, and he doesn't know a lot about AutoCAD. We're having a tough time getting him to lay out his drawings and notes clearly - to the point that we've decided to make his sheet layouts for him so that he can just paste his info on top of the backgrounds - way more than we would normally do when giving backgrounds to consultants.
My boss wants to put the background/titleblock info on a layer/in a form that the MEP guy cannot edit.
Ok so HERE'S the actual question:
Does AutoCAD have a way to permanently lock layers or something? Maybe lock with a password? Anyone ever do something like this?
Permanently no. But if they don't know what they are doing...kinda.
1. Lock the layer - easy to do, but easy to 'unlock'
2. Create a block and use the option to "don't allow explode," which became available somewhere around the 2005 release I think.
Anyone who knows how to search a cad forum can find out how to 'unlock' the block & a layer, but you usually can convince 70% of users that its "locked down" by doing both of these.
Just make sure they sign a cad release form before you start doing part of their work for them.
Couldn't you just make the layout on a drawing and make that file read only?
you could just set up a template for the guy with your layout xref in the template.
Open a new file.
Put in your titleblock and backround info, save it as "titleblock-do_not_touch.dwg" (for example).
Create a new file that someone will be doing the work in (such as placing info that can be edited or etc). type in XR at the command line, it will bring up the external reference menu. insert "titleblock-do_not_touch.dwg". save this as edit_me.dwg
find the file in explorer, right button click > properties. Under the General tab, next to Attributes: check read-only
locking CAD backgrounds
Question:
Our firm has a big project here in Philly, and the owner recommended an MEP consultant for us to use. There is a language barrier, and he doesn't know a lot about AutoCAD. We're having a tough time getting him to lay out his drawings and notes clearly - to the point that we've decided to make his sheet layouts for him so that he can just paste his info on top of the backgrounds - way more than we would normally do when giving backgrounds to consultants.
My boss wants to put the background/titleblock info on a layer/in a form that the MEP guy cannot edit.
Ok so HERE'S the actual question:
Does AutoCAD have a way to permanently lock layers or something? Maybe lock with a password? Anyone ever do something like this?
Permanently no. But if they don't know what they are doing...kinda.
1. Lock the layer - easy to do, but easy to 'unlock'
2. Create a block and use the option to "don't allow explode," which became available somewhere around the 2005 release I think.
Anyone who knows how to search a cad forum can find out how to 'unlock' the block & a layer, but you usually can convince 70% of users that its "locked down" by doing both of these.
Just make sure they sign a cad release form before you start doing part of their work for them.
Couldn't you just make the layout on a drawing and make that file read only?
you could just set up a template for the guy with your layout xref in the template.
that might just be another possibility
gonadsxe,
step-by-step ,how do you do what you suggest?
thx
Open a new file.
Put in your titleblock and backround info, save it as "titleblock-do_not_touch.dwg" (for example).
Create a new file that someone will be doing the work in (such as placing info that can be edited or etc). type in XR at the command line, it will bring up the external reference menu. insert "titleblock-do_not_touch.dwg". save this as edit_me.dwg
find the file in explorer, right button click > properties. Under the General tab, next to Attributes: check read-only
that should solve it.
nice autocad thoughts...now can you tell me where to fine the escape key.
it might be hard to fine an escape key
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