Change XRef for Multiple Drawings ?

DFLY

Hello

I need to change the layout XRef which is inserted into 45 drawings. Right now I can either rename the new XRef so the 45 drawings think it's the old one. But then all my previous revisions will also have that new XRef in.

Is there a way to batch change the XRef into a set of multiple drawings (I'm using sheet sets)?

Possibly a Lisp ?

Thanks for any help. I start manually readdressing them next week.

Terry Dotson

If you were to consider third party software, take a look at DotSoftt's ToolPac, which contains a Drawing Repath tool that changes hard coded image, xref, style, and shape paths in multiple selected drawings. Translation tables can saved to disk for later recall.

James Maeding

If you mean "switch the path", Terry's toolpac is great, or you can also use my free "File Batcher" tool.
Search in this forum for PurgeIDs, the download link is there.
You don't install my tools, just download and put in a folder. Be sure to unblock the dll's mentioned in the instructions.
With my tool, you have a text file lines with "old name->new name"
You can use * in the names, so switch a whole or part of a name.
Its fast, like toolpac, a couple seconds a file. Its much faster than a batch scripter.
Since Terry is watching, one advantage of my tool is if acad crashes in the middle of a batch, it remembers the "todo" status.
Toolpac status list is only maintained if things all work.
If that has changed, please advertise the new feature Terry
Toolpac is a must have IMO. I'm a full time cad programmer too (possibly even competent?), and I keep his stuff around.
thx

DFLY

Thanks all.
I'll check them out.
For now for this stage of the drawings I managed to write a lisp that changes the xref in each drawing. Means I have to open each drawing and run the lisp. But that is still quicker than doing it manually.
On the next stages (ifc and as-con) hopefully I will have checked out your suggestions.

Terry Dotson

@James Maeding said:
..., it remembers the "todo" status.
Toolpac status list is only maintained if things all work.
If that has changed, please advertise the new feature Terry

Many thanks for the positive feedback. We have an option to create/update .LOG files (ASCII Text) that show up in the drawings folder that tells what the multi-drawing processor did to the drawing such as ....

DD-MM-YYYY HH:MM:SS Xref {DwgName}, path changed from {OldPath} to {NewPath}

... so it's like a history of mass changes. In the event of a corrupt drawing stopping the process, the user can see the current drawing name in the dialog so they know which one to restore. Even after that the .LOG files could be sorted by date in WinExplorer to see what processed.

DFLY

@James Maeding said:
If you mean "switch the path", Terry's toolpac is great, or you can also use my free "File Batcher" tool.
Search in this forum for PurgeIDs, the download link is there.
You don't install my tools, just download and put in a folder. Be sure to unblock the dll's mentioned in the instructions.
With my tool, you have a text file lines with "old name->new name"
You can use * in the names, so switch a whole or part of a name.
Its fast, like toolpac, a couple seconds a file. Its much faster than a batch scripter.
Since Terry is watching, one advantage of my tool is if acad crashes in the middle of a batch, it remembers the "todo" status.
Toolpac status list is only maintained if things all work.
If that has changed, please advertise the new feature Terry
Toolpac is a must have IMO. I'm a full time cad programmer too (possibly even competent?), and I keep his stuff around.
thx

Thanks.
How can i tell it's working? I loaded it according to the instructions but nothing seems to have happened.
None of the dll's had the option to unblock. So i unblocked BcadXtra.20.dll manually in command prompt.

DFLY

@Terry Dotson said:
If you were to consider third party software, take a look at DotSoftt's ToolPac, which contains a Drawing Repath tool that changes hard coded image, xref, style, and shape paths in multiple selected drawings. Translation tables can saved to disk for later recall.

Thanks Terry
I had a look at your site, but couldn't really get an idea of how it all works. Any chance you could post a demo on Youtube and post the link here ?

I must say though. That looks like a pretty impressive array of functions. I had a look on youtube and really liked the one where you can change replace text in multiple files. That could have helped me when the client said "It's supposed to be 'P-Jetty' not 'Jetty-P' " 30 drawings later.