COPY DRAWINGS

Purpose:

To copy a selection of drawings in a specified target location.

The source selection can be a single drawing, all drawings in a registry (REGI) or all drawings in a department (DEPT).

You must also specify a target location: a registry or a department. Normally when you create a new drawing, the drawing will automatically be placed in a REGI depending on its drawing type and the project setup. This automatic selection of drawing location is overridden by this function. The drawing copy will always be in the selected target location. Like this you are in full control where your copies are placed, for example in a DEPT/REGI in another database than the source drawings.

Since two elements cannot have the same name in the MDB, the copies must get a new name. You can control the new name by specifying a name prefix and/or a name suffix that will be added to the original name to form the name of the drawing copy. You also have the possibility to give an explicit name when copying a single drawing. This option is only valid if the selected source is a SHEE or DRWG.

In case your target location is a DEPT, the system will maintain the REGI-structure of the source selection in the target location. There will be copies of the REGI elements as well. The REGI copies will be renamed according to the same principle as for drawings: you can specify a prefix/suffix for the new REGI names.

Instructions:

1. In the File menu, click Data bank, then Copy Drawings…

   The Copy Drawings dialog will appear:

   

2. Select Source: This is the selection of source drawings. It can be the name a single drawing, the name of a SHEE, DRWG, REGI or DEPT. If you do not want to type in the name, you can navigate to the element in the draft explorer, and use the CE button.

3. New drawing name: Option to key in an explicit name to a single drawing. Only valid for a SHEE or DRWG.

4. New drawing name, prefix/suffix: Here you can control the name of the drawing copies The prefix/suffix will be added to the source drawing name. For example: If the source drawing name is "DWG1" the name of drawing copy will be "<prefix>DWG1<suffix>".

5. Select Target: This is the target location for the drawing copies. It can be the name of a REGI or a DEPT. If you do not want to type in the name, you can navigate to the element in the draft explorer, and use the CE button.

6. New REGI name, prefix/suffix: Here you can control the name of the new REGI elements. This is only relevant if you have selected a DEPT element as target location. The prefix/suffix will be added to the source REGI name.

7. When you click the Copy button, the system will start to copy the drawings.

   • Copy Drawings is based on the Save Drawing As functionality, which can be rather slow for large drawings. In case you have started a large copying job and do not want to wait, there is a progress bar with a Cancel button. Clicking Cancel will interrupt the copying as soon as the currently handled drawing has finished.

   • You also have the possibility to run your copy job in batch by checking Run in Batch. When clicking the Copy button, the system will start a batch job which can be monitored with the Job Launcher. Please note that you need to do Get Work before you can see the drawing copies.

Options:

There are some drafting default keywords which controls the initial value of the prefix/suffix text strings in the dialog:

DWG_COPY_TARGET_DWG_PREFIX

DWG_COPY_TARGET_DWG_SUFFIX

DWG_COPY_TARGET_REGI_PREFIX

DWG_COPY_TARGET_REGI_SUFFIX

Result:

Drawing copies are created in the selected target location.

Unless you have started the copying in batch you will see that there is information in the message window reporting the progress of the copying. When finished there will be a summary in the end (example):

Number of selected drawing: 10

Successfully copied: 8

Failed to copy: 2

Skipped: 0

Skipped drawings are those that were not copied because you used the Cancel button on the progress bar. If the system did not copy a drawing for any other reason this will be counted as Failed to copy.

(If you have started the copying in batch you will have this information in a log file accessible from the Log Viewer.)